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fir.F, LOVELL 




N266 


LOVELUS 

ISSUED SEMI 










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BY SPECIAL AllRANGEMENT WITH THE AlTTHOKS. 


Lovell’s International Series of Modern Novels. 


No. 


— H 

M 



1. 

Miss Eton of Eton court. By 


17. 

The Wing of Azrael. By Mona 



Katharine B. Macquoid. 

.30 


Calrd. 

.30 

2. 

Hart AS Marvurin. By H. F. 


18. 

The Fog Princes. By F. Warden. 

.30 


Lester. .... 

.50 

19. 

John Herring. By S. Baring 


3. 

Tales of To-Day. By Geo. 

.30 


Gould. 

.50 


K. Sims. 

20. 

The Fatal Phryne. By F. C. 


4. 

English Life Seen through Yan- 



Phillips and C. J. Wills. 

.30 


KEE EYES. By T. C. Crawford. 

.50 

21. 

Harvest. By John Stranee 


5. 

Penny Lancaster, farmer. By 



Winter. 

.30 


Mrs. Bellamy. . 

.50 

22. 

j'tEHALAH. By S. Baring Gould. 

..50 

6. 

Under False Pretences. By 

.50 

23. 

A Troublesome Girl. 'I'he 



Adeline Sersteaht. 

Duchess. 

.30 

r-f 

4 • 

In Exchange for a Soul ~'y 

.30 

24. 

Derrick Vaughan, Novelist. 



Mary Linskill. 

By Edna Lyall. 

.30 

8. 

Guildkroy. By Oulda. 


25. 

Sophy Carmine. By John Stiange 

9. 

St. Clthbert’s Tower. By 



Winter. 

.30 


Florence Warden. 

.30 

20. 

The Luck of the House. P.y 


10. 

Elizabeth Morley. By Katharine 


Adeline Sergeunt. 

.30 


S. Macquoid. . 

30 

27 

The Pennycomiquicks. By S. 


11. 

Divorce ; or Faithful and 



Baring Gc.uld. 

.50 


Unfaithful. By Miss Lee. 

.5'' 

28. 

Jezebel’s Friends. By Dora 


12. 

Long Odds. By Hawley Smart. 

.30 


liussell. 

.30 

13. 

On Circumstantial Evidence. 


29. 

Comedy of a Country House. 



By Florence Manyat. 

.30 


By Julian Sturgis. 

.80 

14. 

Miss Kate ; or Confessions oe 

A Caretaker. By Kita. 


30. 

The Piccadilly puzzle. By 



.30 


Fergus Hn me. 

.30 

15. 

A Vagabond Lover. By Rita. 

.20 

31. 

That Other Woman. By Ann e 


10. 

The Search for Basil Lyndiidrst 



Thomas. 

.30 


By Rosa Noucheiie Carey 

.:I0 





NO. R e: c K N "r ISSUES. 

32. The Curse of Carne’s Hold. By G. A. Plenty. . .30 

33. Uncle Piper of Piper's Hill. By Tasma. . . .30 

34. A Life Sentence. By Adeline Sergeant 30 

Bff’. Kit VVyndham. By Frank Barrett. 30 

36. The P'ree of Knowledge. By G. M. Eobins. . . .30 

37. Roland Oliver. By Justin McCarthy. ... .30 

38. Sheba. By Ptita. 30 

39. Sylvia Arden. By Oswald Crawfurd. . . . .30 

40. Young Mr. Ainslie's Courtship. By P\ C. Phillips. .30 

41. The Haute Noblesse. By Geo. Manville Fenn. . .30 

42. Mount Eden. By Florence Marry at 30 

43. Buttons. By John Strange Winter 30 

44. Nurse Revel’s Mistake. By Florence Warden. . .30 

45. Arminell. By S. Baring Gould .50 

46. The Lament of Dives. By Walter Besant. . . .30 

47. Mrs. Bob. By John Strange Winter 30 

48. WasEver Woman in this Humor Wooed. By Chas. Gibbon. .30 

49. The Mynns Mystery. By Geo. Manville PYnn. . . .30 

Otlier books by vvoll known authors are in course of preparation, ami will be 
published at regukir intervals. 

FRANK F. LOVELL & COMPANY, 

142 <S6 144 V/ORTH STREET, NEW YORK. 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH 


BY 

TASMA, 

author of "uncle piper of piper’s hill,” etc. 


Jessje. 0>Tke^}A/€ 
’^W'z/'euh 



NEW YORK 

FRANK F. LOVELL & COMPANY 
142 AND 144 Worth Street 





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Copyright, 1890, 

BY 

JOHN W. LOVELL 


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IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


CHAPTER I. 

A LOSING GAME. 

•* For most men (till by losing rendered sager) 

Will back their own opinions by a wager.” 

— Byron, Beppo, stanza 27. 

The Melbourne Cup day for 186 — was of that peculiar 
sort popularly denoted by the term “one in a thousand;” 
a term, by-the-bye, which testifies to the general belief, in- 
herent in mankind, that all good things are in a minority. 
Not even the long line of vehicles which crowded the road to 
Flemington had power to raise those overwhelming clouds 
of dust and grit — the bane of excursionists in Victoria. 
Early in the morning there had fallen soft, light showers of 
rain, and now the long level fields around the course were 
green and sparkling. The summer sun had not as yet 
burnt out their young freshness, or tarnished their tender 
hue. Hidden behind some fleece-like, opal-tinted clouds, 
he shone out now and then with an ardour which sent 
umbrellas up, and veils down ; then retreating again, and 
like Moses, veiling himself considerately from the public 
gaze, he lent a sort of subdued radiance to the bright scene 
beneath. Strangers to the colony, of a meditative turn 
of mind, might well look with wondering eyes' upon the 
crowded road, for from the family carriage, with its fat 
horses and well-appointed harness, its smug proprietors 
inside, and impenetrable coachman on the box, to the 
dustman’s cart, with its freight of polished-up, yellow- 
soaped portion of humanity — all classes, all interests were 
represented. 


2 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


“ K-r-ect card o’ the R-a-a-ces ” was to be had at 
every turn of the road-^ — from small, sharp-eyed, sharp- 
limbed boys — from vagabondism in the shape of coat- 
less, ragged urchins — from “ respectability down in the 
world,” in the shape of men in shiny coats which had 
once been black, and black hats which had once been 
shiny. 

And for once in the year, despite the undercurrent of 
feeling which must have run through the mind of every 
atom that went to make up the total of that mass of 
conscious existence — on this one occasion, may it be 
supposed, each mind w’as more like a reflection of its 
neighbour, than on any one of the remaining three 
hundred and sixty-four days in which there is no cup to 
be run for. 

Angelina in the carriage, with her heart full of Edwin, 
had yet time to wonder whether she should win any gloves. 
Could she have looked into Edwin’s heart, where she 
fondly believed she should discover nought but the image 
of her own sweet self, she might have been astonished to 
see that the image had dwindled down to very insignifi- 
cant proportions ; that figures rode rampant under Edwin’s 
waistcoat, and that gloomy forebodings of horses scratched, 
and impossible hedging, with nosey advisers in the back- 
ground, filled her Edwin’s breast. 

“ Great and mean meet massed in death,” says Shelley, 
and great and mean meet massed in expectation likewise 
on the morning of a Melbourne Cup day. 

There is a story told — I think it is by Hans Andersen — 
of a fortunate Princess who possessed a musical box which 
tinkled forth its harmonies to the accompaniment of steam. 
This same steam arose from the pot wherein the dinner 
was cooking of any person about whom the Princess might, 
happen to be curious, and she was thereby enabled to 
detect who was to eat fresh meat, and who was engaged 
in making a rechauffe of yesterday’s meal for to-day. Our 
penetration shall be still more wondrous than the Princess’s, 
and diving into the hearts instead of the saucepans of 
mankind, we shall discover what perplexing thoughts are 
puckering the forehead of the young man who is leaning 
back in a hansom on his way to tiie races, intent to all 
appearance upon his betting-book. There is a gathering 
dissatisfaction in his grey-blue, rather prominent eyes, as 


A LOSING GAME. 


3 


he goes on with his calculations, and his weak, well-mean- 
ing, mobile mouth, partly hidden by a light, well-disposed 
moustache, looks pitiably disappointed, like that of a 
baffled child. 

There are types of character in figure as in face. 
George Drafton’s shoulders are essentially horsemanlike. 
He is light of build : the sporting man with a dash of the 
gentleman asserts itself in his tight-fitting trousers, and 
proclaims itself aloud in his cutaway coat. In point of 
fact he is well pleased that this should be the case, his 
knowledge of horse-flesh being far-reaching and profound. 
He can run through the pedigree of every racer of fame 
in the colonies, and can tell you, without a pause for 
reflection, what horses have won the principal races in 
Melbourne and Sydney for years back, the time to a 
second they occupied in the running, and perchance the 
name of the jockeys who rode them. 

At Rubria, his uncle’s station on the Murray, where 
he is manager-in-chief, overseer, and general head and 
authority, George studies intently the sporting columns of 
the Australasian, and follows laboriously the fluctuations 
of the betting market. He has a golden dream, and this 
dream is a double, and some day the double is to be 
realised. He loses heart sometimes — the dream is so 
tardy of realisation ; but he hugs to himself the recollec- 
tion that it was all but verified once. He cannot apply 
the axiom that “A miss is as good as a mile,” and that 
in matters of racing “ Half a head is as good as a mile ; ” 
but after every disappointment he clings the closer to his 
golden dream, and builds up a new combination to wile 
it into action. As he makes his way to the saddling 
paddock friends and acquaintances run into his path. 
“ Give us a tip, Drafton, old fellow,” says a stripling with 
an old-man face. “ Lay me on to a good thing, will you, 
Drafton, my boy ? ” says another. These compliments to 
his discrimination never come amiss to George, and help 
to bring back his mind into the groove of passive self- 
complacency to run out of which has chafed him so sorely. 
Portly bankers give him a friendly nod, and grave men of 
business, in whose white waistcoats is seen a sort of con- 
cession to the relaxed nature of the day, hold out a cordial 
hand as he pushes past them. Men with noses of undue 
prominence, and aggressive watch-chains to which depend 


4 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


breloques flashing with glittering stones, salute him as 
one with whom they have had satisfactory dealings. There 
is a hail-fellow-well-met air about him which is not un- 
pleasing, and there is a certainty about his uncle which 
widens the smiles with which George is regarded. The 
certainty takes shape in thousands of acres in Victoria, in 
millions of acres in Queensland, in great warehouses and 
offices in Flinders Lane, in the aroma which emanates 
from a “ man of means.” George likes to use his uncle’s 
name as a reference on occasions. “Josiah Carp, of 
Messrs. Cavil & Carp — that’s my uncle. Some of the 
richest landowners in Victoria ! By the Lord Harry, I 
only wish I had a tenth part of what he fools away in his 
blessed improvements every year.” And thereupon George 
gives his saddler an order for a racing saddle, which is to 
make “ the cockatoos ” * open their eyes, on the strength 
of his uncle, “ Mr. Josiah Carp, of Messrs. Cavil & Carp, 
Flinders Lane East.” 

To-day he has almost forgotten that he is his uncle’s 
nephew. He has no eyes for spring’s velvet-pile carpet 
upon which he is treading; hardly a glance to spare 
for the parti-coloured hues which surround him ; the 
human kaleidoscope scattered before his sight conveys 
nothing to his mind ; his whole soul is absorbed in con- 
templation of a board, which is elevated with a jerk near 
the judge’s stand, like a stiff arm suddenly thrown out 
and petrified. The board is black, and on it stand a row 
of white figures, thus — 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, ii. George’s eye- 
brows almost disappear into his hat as he regards it, and 
the three light seams which run horizontally across his 
forehead become for the second deep furrows with ridges 
between them. “ Rosana scratched ! By George ! ” lie 
exclaims, “ it’s like my confounded luck ! Another chance 
gone ! Damn the whole affair ! I give it up ! ” 

So the golden dream was not to turn to a golden reality 
just yet. Next day George was forced to return to the 
bush, poorer by some hundreds than when he came to 
town. As he journeyed up in the train, sole occupant of 
a carriage, feet extended on the opposite seat, aching head 
stuffed into the double-cushioned corner, he fell into a 
whole train of reflections, after this wise. First he cursed 


Cockatoo is the name usually given to a petty farmer in Victoria. 


A LOSING GAME. 


5 


his luck, and then himself, hoped his uncle would not get 
wind cf the affair, and fell to cogitating on the chances of 
“ the New Year’s meeting ; ” then remembered that he had 
hoped to get across to Sydney after the shearing was over, 
and bethought him of the object of his visit there. This 
gave a new turn to his inward musings, for Sydney was the 
home of the vision, not the golden, but the soft-eyed, 
smiling vision, which was wont to hover about his bed- 
side before he closed his eyes at night, and appear radiant 
and laughing in his dreams. “ I don’t deserve her,” he 
thought ; “ she doesn’t know what evil means ! Still, I 
think if I had her to keep me straight, I should be a good 
enough fellow, as the world goes. Confound it all ! I 
don’t drink, I never did a mean thing in my life ! I would 
give up that cursed gambling, and I would try — upon 
my soul, I would try — to make her happy. If I didn’t 
succeed, and I couldn’t reform properly, well, I would go 
to the devil as fast as could be, and so rid her of me very 
soon. But there’d be no jolly fear of my going to the 
devil if Pauline would have me ! But will she have me ? 
That old stick of a grandmother wouldn’t let me ask her 
last time, and that’s more than a year ago now. Well, I 
shall know soon anyhow, and if she says ‘No!’ I shall 
take it as a sign that I’m not to bother my head about 
reforming or marriage, or anything of that sort, at any 

rate ; and if she says ‘ Yes ’ ” 

What would have happened if the Pauline of George’s 
meditations had said “ Yes ! ” must go to swell the shadowy 
ranks of all the abortive conjectures and resolutions of 
whose germs we have ever been conscious, for the train 
shot into a station, the guard called out — “ Ten minutes 
for refreshments 1 ” and George scanned the platform to 
discern whether he should find any roving acquaintances 
on for a little game.” “ In for a penny, in for a pound ! ” 
he said. “I may as well be hung for a sheep as for a 
lamb ! ” 


CHAPTER II. 


GEORGE DRA ETON’S BOYHOOD. 

*'Oh me ! my uncle’s spirit is in these stones.” 

— Shakspere, King John, 

George’s uncle (uncle by marriage only) was a nouveau 
riche. He had “ taken to wife, to cheer his life,” as the 
quaint old rhyme has it, a sister of George’s mother, and 
she dying soon after their marriage, left him wifeless and 
childless. It is not recorded whether he grieved for her 
much. She had, it is true, a granite tombstone, and a 
costly funeral, by means of which the poor corpse was 
mocked with all that pompous pageantry by which we 
are supposed to honour the empty shell of some spirit 
that has held communion with our own for a few easily 
forgotten years. 

“Poor Mrs. Carp,” people said; “she was very re- 
served ! Quite a young woman too ! Dear me ! what a 
pity ! I wonder who will be the second Mrs. Carp ! ” 

This was the elegy chanted over her by the friends whom 
she had been wont to set at her table. But it is well so ! 

Shall we go sorrowing because our neighbour mourns ? 
Were we to grieve and be heartstricken for others’ woes, 
we might pour ashes over our heads and array ourselves 
in sackcloth to the end of our days. 

So Josiah Carp mourned with decency during an allotted 
time, and took no thought of marrying again. Conven- 
tionality was his gospel ; business was the god he adored. 
He was a strange compound of good and evil, of ignorance 
and intelligence, of overweening egotism on the one hand 
and industrial energy on the other. A great station-owner, 
whose managers were wont to quake at his approach ; a 
general merchant, whose name was familiar among the 
princes of commerce at home ; president of this board, 
chairman of that ; railway director, bank director, insurance 

6 


GEORGE DR A ETON’S BOYHOOD, 7 

office director ; autocrat in his own calling, possessing the 
largest bump of self-esteem on the largest, shiniest cranium 
that ever came under a phrenologist's digits. His very 
shoulders — he was a short, powerfully built man — were 
obtrusive in their prosperous complacency. 

I wonder, in these wondering days of speculative theory, 
when there are codes of philosophy both astronomic and 
gastronomic, when character has been discovered to lurk 
behind the ear and to frown upon you from the brows, to 
ooze out at your fingers' ends and to twine around your 
toes — I wonder, I say, that no one has been found to point 
out its resting-place on the shoulders, or to mark the ex- 
pression which lies from the nape of the neck downwards. 
To classify backs would be a wearisome task : their variety 
is great, their distinction marvellous. How often do we 
recognise a friend from behind by the cut of his shoulders, 
upon which his individuality is almost as clearly stamped 
as upon his face. There is the clerical cut, and the horsey 
cut, and the studious cut, and the devil-may-care cut, as 
there are sulky backs, and successful backs, and suppressed 
backs, and imperturbable backs. And whereas a man 
may school himself to compose his countenance, and so 
prevent his predominant characteristic from appearing 
therein, but cannot prevent his shoulders from following 
their bent, so will they gradually assume a nameless some- 
what breathing of their owner and their owner's tendency, 
and after a subtle but certain fashion of their own distin- 
guish him from his fellow-men. 

Mr. Carp’s self-asserting shoulders and bumptious back 
had often roused George’s ire as a boy. He would 
walk by his uncle's side and listen to the maxims 
which the elder man instilled into him — maxims which 
Josiah would illustrate in all good faith by dwelling 
upon his own particular perfections. , Youth was to 
bow down before him and strive humbly to follow in his 
footsteps. The boy disliked his guardian, and dreaded 
these walks in his company. He quailed under the 
cold stare of the eyes, which, medusa-like, transfixed 
him where he stood — steely eyes which had a knack of 
fastening themselves upon you unawares, and shooting out 
a dart of inquiry that probed the very depths of your soul 
— suspicious eyes which made you think, with a sudden 
qualm, “ Wnai does lie know about me?” and made inno- 


8 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


cence flush, like guilt entrapped; but shifting eyes too, if 
met by a bold front — eyes which would furtively peer 
round corners, or behind the cracks of a door, or under 
the folds of an envelope — whether under the rim of a 
bonnet likewise George in nowise troubled himself to 
inquire. 

His aunt being dead, and he an orphan, he had 
been left as a sort of live-stock legacy to his uncle, who 
likewise held in trust for him his little fortune of four or 
five thousand pounds. His palmy days were spent at 
school ; his days of penance in Mr. Carp’s house at 
Toorrah. He loathed the handsome villa, where he dared 
not run across the hall, lest his boots should scratch the 
marble tiles ; where he must not enter the drawing-room 
all day, lest he should carry dust upon the rich carpet ; 
where he durst only look at the heavy, leather-bound, gilt, 
bedecked volumes, that stood with crisp, new, unsoiled pages 
on the shelves of his uncle’s library. In vain Roderick 
Random leered invitingly down, or Gil Bias would have 
allured him to follow in his roguish sport among robbers’ 
dens or barber-doctor’s adventures ! He must still look 
wistfully at the glass doors which shut in these treasures, 
and look and long, “and nothing more.” 

These dreary epochs in a young life were not frequent, 
however. A popular fellow at school, he was never without 
invitations all through his holidays, and not unwillingly 
fought shy of the villa, where the very garden, with its 
every branch cut and trimmed, and the long, cold drawing- 
room, with its dreary knick-knacks and works of art pre- 
cisely laid out on inlaid tables and buhl cabinets, repressed 
and chilled him. 

The name of father had no association for George. He 
was wont, as a very little child, to say “ papa ” to every 
man in uniforn#, because he was taught to regard an in- 
different painting of a hectic veteran, between whose cheeks 
and military coat the artist had impartially divided his red 
ochre, as “my own papa.” Before he could speak quite 
plainly “ my own papa ” was the postman on a cold morn- 
ing ; the paternity was then transferred to a fish-dealer, 
whose scarlet blouse and carmine nose were to George’s 
infant mind a clear proof of identity. Finally the picture 
had the best of it, and the little boy was fain to believe 
that he owed, like a virtuous Ciiinaman, all possible 


GEORGE DRAFTON^S BOYHOOD. 


9 

reverence and respect to the chronic victim of scarlet 
fever who shone over his bedroom mantelpiece. 

With his mother the" case was different. A closely held 
recollection of a dear face, always beaming and bright for 
him, however it might look upon the rest of the world — 
of a voice attuned by love and mother’s pride when it 
addressed itself to him — of a soft hand which stroked 
down his rough head and tucked him into his bed at 
night — rose clearly before him when Mr. Carp’s hard voice 
grated on his ear, and the metallic eyes were bent severely 
on him, and filled him with vain longing and yearning 
inconceivable. 

When he was about eighteen his uncle for the first time 
broached the subject of his future career. 

“You’ve ’ad schooling enough, George,” he said — Mr. 
Carp, it may be observed par parenthese, having dropped 
his A’s broadcast in his youth, had never been able to pick 
them up since — “if you can’t turn it to account now, 
that’s your own fault. I’ve got a berth ppen for you in 
my office ; be up at seven, begin work at nine, ’ome at six, 
and you’ll find you’ve plenty of time for reading up and 
improving yourself at night.” 

This was all the prospect held out to a young man at 
the outset of life, full of youthful impulses, and not destitute 
of manly aims. He tried it for a space, and sickened of it. 
“What’s the good of it all,” he thought, “if I hate it and 
it leads to no result ? ” 

His philosophy was not of the deeply inquiring sort, 
which would make him embark in the futile attempt to 
solve the great question of life — a question which never 
has and never will be answered, though men grovel in 
the dust, and wear heart and brain to madness in weary 
striving at its solution. He was here — that was enough 
for him — and he must make the best of it; and the 
“ best” did not mean the spending of his days in working 
for a disparaging master, and his evenings in listening to 
disquisitions upon rectitude, which he saw flatly contra- 
dicted in practice on the morrow; or the reverberations 
of long-drawn snores when the holder-forth of these 
sage doctrines had succumbed to the triple influences 
of dinner and port wine and the Journal of Civtmerce 
combined. 

George had an essentially impressionable nature. A 


lO 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


kind word, a nod of approval, would have spurred him 
on like a willing horse ; but these were never forthcoming ; 
and he might have said, “ Oh me r my uncle’s spirit is in 
this ledger,” so heart-sick did he become of his unprofit- 
able additions. 

Occasionally Mr. Carp went to the club, or spent 
his evening at the ‘"’Ouse.” On these occasions George 
would sit brooding at home, afraid to go, like other 
young men of his age, to the theatre. When he did so, 
an uneasy consciousness of his uncle’s presence gleaming 
through those cold eyes overcame and oppressed him, and 
he crept home like a thief to get into the house through 
his bedroom window, which he had made interest with the 
housemaid to leave open for him, and to confront his 
guardian at the breakfast table with a countenance on 
which a sort of defiant uneasiness was plainly expressed. 
He made up his mind at last that he could endure such 
a mode of life no longer. He had no seaward impulses, 
like many lads who man our navy and our merchantmen, 
but I think he would have preferred to be a cabin-boy, 
sworn at by a bluff captain, and engrossed all day in wash- 
ing greasy plates in greasier water, than to be condemned 
to a perpetual feast at which so life-chilling a skeleton 
must preside. Not that I would herein imply that Mr. 
Carp bore the faintest resemblance to an actual and not a 
typical skeleton. He was fashioned in the mould of the 
publisher described in that quaint book which tells of 
“ Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque ” — 

“ He was a man whose ample paunch 
Was lined with beef and ham and haunch.” 

The skeleton formation lay concealed under flesh and 
muscle and encircling rolls of fat. The skull was hidden 
under broad cheeks, clean shaved but for some grizzled 
whiskers on either side. The chin was firm and square, 
the lips grimly pleasant and ofttimes sour smiling, the 
neck as the neck of a bull. George watched him one even- 
ing, when, after dinner, leaning back in his chair, his short 
obese figure looked like a gigantic caterpillar in a plethoric 
stage, propped up against a support ; the Mark Lane 
Express in his hand, his unfinished glass of wine on the 
table at his elbow. The extremity of his case gave the 
boy courage to blurt out some of the thoughts w'hich were 


GEORGE DRAFTON^S BOYHOOD. 


II 


seething in his mind. It is true that he made three abor- 
tive attempts to shape his thoughts into words ; that get- 
ting the first time as far as “Unk” — a sudden closing of 
his throat brought the “ kel” to a disastrous end; that 
bringing up the next “Uncle” in husky haste, it died 
upon his lips as he uttered it ; and that he converted the 
last spasrnodic venture into a kind of strangled sneeze, 
which caused Josiah Carp to open his steely eyes with a 
jump, just as the letters of the Mark Lane Express were 
beginning to blur and blot each other before his drowsy 
gaze. But Ceorge now plunged into his subject recklessly. 

“ I don’t think somehow, uncle ” — this not very cohe- 
rently — “ I mean — I think, in fact you know,— I’m not 
cut out for an office life.” 

The gleaming orbs detached themselves from the columns 
of the Mark Lane Express^ and rested with a stare of cold 
disapproval on the boy’s flushed face. 

“ You must improve in your ’andwriting,” replied the 
great man shortly ; “ get up an hour earlier of a morning 
and practise your copies. When / was your age I turned 
out of bed in the dark, and set to my writing as soon 
as it got a bit light.” 

Now as Mr. Carp’s caligraphy belonged to a paralytic 
and otherwise disabled family of strokes, which in impo- 
.'tent haste tripped each other up, and tumbled over their 
neighbour’s heels, and doubled each other up in all the 
contortions of the cramp and the colic, the parallel was, to 
say the least of it, hardly reassuring, nor perhaps entirely 
suited to the case in point. George therefore braced him- 
self up for a fresh plunge. 

“ I don’t mean that exactly, uncle, but I mean — I 
mean ” 

“ What do you mean then, in God’s name ? ” asked the 
other irritably. “ Speak out, can’t you ! ” 

“Well, you see” — this very resolutely — “ I want to try a 
station life. I wouldn’t much care what I commenced at. 
Travelling with cattle, or shepherding, or boundary riding 
even, or anything, so long as ” 

At this crisis a sort of gulp interrupted the flow of his 
eloquence, but the rest of the sentence might have been 
construed into “ so long as I’m out of your way.” 

His uncle laid down the paper. There were some con- 
flicting emotions at work under that broad expanse of 


12 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


waistcoat, troubling, I cannot say his heart, but his brain, 
his stomach, his digestion generally. His nephew would 
have six thousand pounds of his own when he came of 
age, and could make himself independent of his guardian. 
Moreover, of all Josiah’s queer characteristics, none was 
more remarkable than his principle of adhesiveness. He 
disliked parting with any one who in the capacity of 
manager, overseer, clerk, office-boy, or bottle-washer had 
been in the employ of the great firm of “Cavil & Carp.” 
There were mixed motives at work here, neither wholly 
good nor wholly evil. In the first instance, those he 
employed were obliged to bring him unimpeachable char- 
acters with them. In the next, he could not endure that 
the daily routine of his business should be discussed or 
descanted upon. He had been known to goad and bully 
a faithful servant until the man, exasperated beyond endur- 
ance, declared that he must leave him then and there, and 
would fain have flung his wages into his taskmaster’s face. 
Thereupon Josiah had been known to cringe to his ere- 
while victim, and to promise him much increase of salary 
on condition of his remaining ; but such a result was too 
uncertain to be reckoned upon, and more frequently his 
employes would pocket his abuse and his money with out- 
ward calm and inward wrath. He had achieved a reputa- 
tion for his firm which made it appear to anxious aspirants 
as tempting as a bank — that Land of Promise which 
young men so often enter for life lured on by the hazy 
and golden prospect of possible inspectorships and general 
managerships. 

Rapidly turning over George’s case in his mind, Mr. 
Carp decided that his nephew should have his own way. 
Possibly under the impenetrable coating of egotism and 
business worship which encrusted his soul there lurked 
a faint feeling of kindness for the lad. Moreover, he 
thought much of the world’s opinion, and the world, if it 
came to be convinced that he had used an orphan nephew 
with unnecessary harshness, thwarting his wishes and natural 
bent without reason or motive, might look less admiringly 
upon him, and hear with less credulity those admirable 
maxims of which he believed himself to be the living 
illustration. So far it could not be said of him that 
he had neglected his duty with regard to George in the 
platter of bis food, and his clothing, and his education. 


GEORGE DRAFTON\S BOYHOOD. 13 

That he had seldom or ever bestowed on him* a genial 
or encouraging word, that he had repressed and chilled 
all his boyish desires and youthful longings, that he had 
isolated him from his companions and friends, and had 
established over him a sort of unwholesome influence, by 
means of which he made himself dreaded and disliked, yet 
feared and obeyed, were matters not for the world’s ken ; 
but the controlling of his inclinations with regard to his 
future career 7 vas a matter for the world’s ken, and revolving 
all these considerations in his mind, Mr. Carp settled with 
himself that George might take to station life when he liked. 

So he said briefly — ‘'If you want to learn squatting, 
I can send you to one of my stations. It’s not such a 
paying game as a town business, and I think you’re a fool 
for your pains ; but a wiifui beast must ’ave ’is own way ! ” 

This was one of the small aphorisms he delighted in, and 
which he was wont to scatter broadcast in his discourse 
and his letters ; flinging them out recklessly — wide of the 
mark sometimes, hitting it at others, but always garnishing 
his ideas with them. 

George hardly dared to believe that he had gained his 
point so easily. He tried to thank his uncle in a voice 
from which he essayed to banish that tremulous quaver 
which our utterances assume when our desires are suddenly 
realised, and he lowered* his eyelids lest the joy that danced 
in his eyes should “ stir the bile ” (as Moliere would say) 
of the elder man. What new-born delight thrilled him ! 
He was like one of Dante’s long-vexed souls, escaping from 
the tormenting nightmare of the “ Purgatories,” and inhaling 
the first breath of the balmy air wafted from the regions 
of Eternal Peace. What bright visions in one short 
moment filled his brain ! Visions of all the glories and 
freedom of a squatter’s life ; of broad far-reaching plains 
in which he was already galloping in imagination after 
bounding kangaroo ; of long stockwhips, whose crack like 
the report of a pistol already sounded in his ear; of nightly 
camp-fires round which jolly yarns or bush songs travel 
so quickly ; of life, in fact, or what to him meant life and 
happiness. He scarcely slept that night, and pondered 
much as to whether he should go to the office in the 
morning. His heart sank when his uncle scowled at him 
as he took his seat at the breakfast table next morning, 
and said — 


14 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


“You’ll be late for work, George, if you don’t make ’aste 
over \ our breakfast.” 

But he plodded doggedly on that day, and the next, 
and the next, until the heart-sickness of deferred hope 
laid hold of him. Then Mr. Carp told him suddenly 
to be ready for a start next evening by one of Cobb’s 
coaches, as he meant to place him under one of his 
managers on the Murray. All this happened about eight 
years prior to the time when George is on his way to 
the races in a hansom, and in the sketch of his after 
life it will be seen how these early influences affected his 
future bearing. 

There is a much-worn simile extant which compares the 
reaction of an overstrained mind to the breaking of a bow 
whose tension has been too great ; but if the bow be 
of a tough material, the harder the strain the greater 
should be its resistance, until it had relaxed the undue 
pressure and gained the day. George’s mind was like a 
very elastic bow giving way to the force of the last new 
hand which bends it. It yielded to every fresh influence 
which was brought to bear upon it. His uncle had aimed 
at crushing out his self-dependence. Now that it was in 
part restored to him he hardly knew what use to make 
of it. Nevertheless he soon became a favourite on the 
station. His pluck, good humour, and openness of dis- 
position won him friends. Resolved upon proving that 
he was the exact opposite of his uncle, he was “ Hail 
fellow, well met ” with every man on the place ; would 
sit on the kitchen table at night and take his turn at a 
song, or at the narration of a not over-choice story with 
the rest ; always, be it remarked, quite content to sink to 
the level of his companions, without any thought of rais- 
ing them to his own. His temper was easily roused, but 
easily appeased — a temper that would find vent in swearing 
some round oaths and “ showing fight ” — to laugh at its own 
ebullition five minutes later. When his little fortune was 
left at his own disposal he shook off to a great extent his 
uncle’s thraldom, but he never quite overcame a sensation 
of vague discomfort in his presence. Mr. Carp found him 
more serviceable than he had expected, and had transferred 
him from one post to another until he had installed him 
in that managership of which mention is made in the first 
chapter. 


GEORGE DRAFTON^S BOYHOOD. 


5 


There is a particular period in young men's lives in 
which they are popularly said to be “sowing their wild 
oats.” Considering the sorry crop they produce, the energy 
with which this branch of industrial agriculture is carried 
on savours somewhat of the marvellous. Many who have 
never “done a hand's turn” in any other line may be seen 
prosecuting this labour with such perseverance and sucii 
ardour that they wear out their very lives in the service, 
and before the harvest is ripe fall victims to their own 
devotion to their work. 

George Drafton was not one of these, but the ground 
was tilled, and he was dropping in the seed — hesitatingly 
and sparingly at first, more recklessly and in hot haste 
as the task went on. He smeared his hands but slightly 
with the black husks of debauch which bear so putrid 
a fruit ; he scattered abroad handfuls of the puffy grains 
of gambling, which indeed are so unproductive that save 
for the fortunate few, who possess a golden garner whereby 
to replenish their pockets, they produce no fruit at all, 
while the sterile soil still calls for more, and patches of 
rich earth bear delusive promise of yielding up the seed 
an hundredfold. It may be wondered where George 
found opportunities for sowing his particular crop. Our 
forefathers would have suggested a ready devil, who, 
as fast as the cumbersome paving-stones of good inten- 
tions were laboriously laid down in the direction of his sul- 
phurous abode, supplanted them with smiling opportunities. 

When Shakspere says, “O opportunity, thy guilt is 
great ! ” he echoes, as indeed in almost every page he 
echoes, a truth that hardly one of us has not found some 
occasion to rue. 

George found frequent reasons for coming to town. He 
cultivated billiards with great zeal and success at the 
nearest township. Of his sporting propensities mention 
has already been made. 

Having brought him up therefore to this point in his 
life, and only lightly touched upon the one unsullied 
image besides his mother’s which he cherished, bringing 
it out of the innermost recesses of his heart in his better 
moments to encourage his woithier aspirations and aid 
his higher thoughts, we will leave his actions hereafter to 
speak for themselves, and to prove whether he was made 
of.genuine gold or only of base metal after all. 


CHAPTER III. 

PA ULINE’S DIARY. 

“ Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare." — B yron. 

Two catastrophes to record! Uncle Chubby is in jail 
(grandma’s linen-press), for saying “ Hang it,” and I am 
not to go to the Crokers’ party ! In the teeth of two such 
afflictions, I don’t know where to go for solace. Philo- 
sophy won’t help me a bit, for it is utterly futile to say 
“ I don’t care,” when I do, and care too so much. Philo- 
sophy is all very well when one has an audience for it, 
but it goes a very little way when one has to preach it, 
and practise it too, all by one’s self. I know that at this 
minute Chubby is saying, “ Hang it,” “ Hang it,” over and 
over again until he is tired, and although I am not in- 
carcerated in that fusty linen-press of grannie’s, redolent 
of lavender and camphor, I feel as if I could say “ Hang 
it! ’’too. 

Shall I turn my eyes seaward, “ as people say in books,” 
for comfort ? Will it bring a mysterious peace to my 
thwarted spirit to see that stretch of bay which lies 
at the foot of our garden turn from dark blue to warm 
slate-colour in the sunset, or to see (as the people who 
dabble in colour say) that bit of ginger-coloured sky melt 
into faint green, as its edges get mixed with the surround- 
ing blue ! Do I find the very smallest spark of consola- 
tion in the unmistakable whiffs of briny air which reach 
my nostrils, mingled with delicious citrony and lemony 
odours from the shrubbery beyond the lawn ? 

Chubby’s morepork issues forth from his anchorite’s cell 
under the laurestinus, and opens that cavernous, shark-like 
maw of his to “ give vent to the ghost of a caw.” This is 
an utterly misapplied quotation, but let it pass ! Well, do 
the morepork’s solemn eyes enliven my musings ? Not 
a bit of it ! I would rather see a full-length reflection of 


PAU LINENS DIARY, 


17 


myself to-night in my new ball-dress, than look at Sydney 
Harbour painted by a colonial Turner in colours which 
run riot over the canvas. I would rather be putting a 
judicious “quontam ” of Jockey Club behind my ears, and 
dabbing my arms with violet powder, than inhale all this 
perfume laden breeze, “ faint with too much sweet,” as 
Shelley says. That is a bad habit of mine, that appro- 
priation of other people’s best thoughts ! But when the 
very thing you want to express has been said exactly as 
it ought to be said by some master mind, it seems pitiable 
to put the thought into your own poor words instead of 
writing it down with two little flourishes at either end to 
prevent your getting the credit of it yourself. 

But to come back to my grievance. There sits grandma ! 
I can see her through the window of the verandah where 
I am sitting. It’s not quite light enough to say for certain, 
but I can answer for it as surely as if I were looking at 
her as steadfastly as the morepork is looking at me, that 
she has her “ I will and I shall ” expression on to-night. I 
wonder if I were to rush into the room all eploree^ and fall 
upon my knees on that lob-sided hassock near the fender, 
and sa^, “ Chbre et bien aimde petite grand mbre ” (it is 
always best to coax her in her own language) “ de grace 
aie pitie de ton enfant gatee ! rends la heureuse cette 
seule fois ! ” and then to get up a little sniff behind my 
handkerchief, whether it would have any effect. I think 
not. I fancy I can see grandma assuming that puzzled 
air of chilling politeness which is so utterly disconcerting 
to a rampant petitioner. She would reply in the most 
scrupulously chosen English — “ Of that which I have said, 
I do not return ; ” and 1 should have made a fool of myself 
for nothing. 

Oh, hang it I I say again. It is k relief to write down 
the mutinous words ! I should like to go to the linen- 
press and sing them in chorus with Uncle Chubby ! I 
am writing at random, for it is getting so dark that the 
garden looks like a beautiful uncoloured photograph with 
grey shrubs standing out softly against the clear white sky. 
Fifine is bringing in the lamp. Yes ; I was right ! No 
prostration of oneself, no self-abasement, would be avail- 
ing to-night. I have been pondering over a plan of eating 
nothing at tea-time ; not of sulking (that is derogatory), but 
of looking like a cheerful martyr, sweetly submissive, of 

B 


i8 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


course, but still too broken-spirited to heed such bodily re 
quirements as coffee and cream, and thin bread and butter. 

Alas for our carnal natures! I smell a galette ! Yes, 
Fifine is bringing it in, her cheeks hot from the com- 
bined influences of her own triumph and the kitchen oven. 
On second thoughts I won’t go upon the martyr system 
this time. For one thing Fm sure it wouldn’t answer, and 
for another we mightn’t have a galette to-morrow. . . . 

Ifa// an hour after tea! Oh, long evening, when 
will you be over ! 'Fhe short oblivion of my troubles 
induced by the galette is at an end, and now I have 

nothing to look forward to but the recreative pastime 

of hearing Chubby go through his Ollendorff for to- 

morrow. I shall ask him whether he has the “ hat 
his cousin’s wife has,” which is a physical impossibility 
to begin with, and he will reiterate in that chanting 
monotone of his that “he has not got his cousin’s 
wife’s hat, but that he has the vest of his brother’s 
tailor.” And all the time I shall be thinking of the 
Crokers’ smooth floor, and the “ beautiful Danube ” will 
run through my head, and crowning tribulation of all — 
I shall see Jamesina Croker — Great Heavens ! what a 

name ! — swaying and slipping round the* room with Sir 
Francis Segraye. I could endure it better if Jamesina 
were not so pretty. I wish I could console myself by 
disparaging her, but the disparagement and the philo- 
sophy are both equally futile, when I can see with my 
two clear-seeing eyes how awfully pretty Jamesina really 
is. I know her skin to be red and white in the right 
places, her nose most odiously straight, and her mouth 
a sort of aggravation of perfection after the style of the 
Venus Victrix mouth. Then her absurd little confiding 
manner is irresistible. I feel inclined to pet and protect 
her myself, though I know she has just been making “a 
square meal,” and can pommel her little brothers like 
the “Old Woman who lived in a Shoe.” 

Thank goodness, grandma is dinning Chubby’s Ollendorff 
into his obtuse little pate. She will call me to read to 
her directly. I don’t think she’s in a Madame de Cam- 
pan mood to-night. Most likely we shall go through a 
course of the Philosophie Positive.^ or discuss some of St. 
Simon’s cogent conclusions, for grandma wants me to 
be an esprit fort^ although L don’t think she minds 


PAULINE\S DIARY. 


19 


my being un iant soit pen coquette into the bargain. 
It reminds her of my poor mother, I suppose, who, if 
Fifine is to be relied upon, must have worried my father’s 
life out. I like to look at mother’s miniature, and I 
like to be told I’m the living image of her — not that I 
entirely believe it, for I can’t help thinking that some 
tawny ancestor of the Delaunay family must have 
vented his spite upon me especially, and touched up my 
hair and eyes (which would be otherwise so delightfully 
dark) with, these unaccountable shades of rust-colour. 
Warm tints ! I may as well call them, but I wish they 
had -not been so partial to my hair. My cheeks have 
been left quite in the cold ! It requires a superhuman 
excitement to brighten them up with the least bit of 
that flush which has settled permanently in Jamesina’s 
face. In fact, my complexion is all over what grandma 
calls This pleasing distraction of scribbling about 

myself does not carry my thoughts away properly from 
the party. Perhaps at this very second Sir Francis is 
talking to Jamesina in that “ specially-interested-in-the- 
person-you-are-talking-to sort of voice ; and if he says, 
“Will you give me this waltz. Miss Croker?” Jamesina 
will jump at it, I know, in her own heart. I wonder 
why we are both so interested in him ? He has etiorme- 
ment de la distinction., as Grannie says. That must be 
the secret of it. There is a something belonging to 
Englishmen, an intonation, an expression, a something 
indescribable, undefinable, which goes farther than good 
looks, or cleverness, or even good morals. Very few 
colonials have it. I wonder whether men recognise this 
in each other as quickly as we do in them. Oh dear ! 
Chubby is relegated to the side-table with the everlasting 
Ollendorff at his elbow, and grandma has capsized 
“Fourier,” and is opening Comte with an air which 
means business. Is it so great an advantage to belong 
to the Encyclopediste school ? In a few minutes a 
whirl of confused and bewildering thoughts will assail 
my mind. So far the whole system of the universe 
seems embodied to me in the few words, “ Might is 
right;” but then might means law, and law means , . . 
Yes, grandma, I am coming d IHnstant inhne ! 

The ties which bound Pauline’s belongings together 


20 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


were of a complicated description. Her grandmotlier 
abided by the French principle of being no older t’nan 
she appeared ; her appearance, however, varying with 
the different phases through which she passed in the 
course of a day, she subverted nature’s plans by grow- 
ing steadily younger until the hour of bedtime had 
arrived. In the night Time did double work, but 
Madame’s theory allowed her to outwit Time in the 
daylight ; on the other hand, she yielded herself up to 
him in the obscurity. Her only child, Ernest, other- 
wise Chubby, so called from his pendant cheeks in the 
days of his fat infancy, was now in his eighth year ; 
her only grandchild, Pauline, in her eighteenth. It was 
perplexing and embarrassing, but this is how it came 
about. 

This stately French woman had left her convent-school, 
her indifferent image of the Virgin that simpered at her 
from its pedestal on the oratory, her plaster cherub in- 
geniously perched in the alcove over her white couch, 
holding in his smiling mouth the shell of holy water where- 
with she was wont to besprinkle herself in the morning, 
her peaceful routine of devotions and penances, all these 
she had left at the age of sixteen to swear, at her parents’ 
bidding, to “cleave until death should her part,” to 
Monsieur Henri Delaunay, deputy, man of letters, and 
Liberal. Her family belonged to the conservative type of 
souls which cannot understand that the “old order should 
change.” To them no ghastly, blood-besmeared guillotine 
taught a horrible lesson. An era of martyrdom had set 
in, and heaven was to be peopled by sainted aristocrats 
and monarchs, whose divine rights would be recognised by 
the angels. It was with some misgiving that they contem- 
plated the idea of seeing a daughter of their house become 
Madame Delaunay, but many considerations biassed their 
decision. 

Delaunay, in those days when a Bourbon king was peace- 
ably seated on the throne, was reticent in the expression 
of his true opinions. He married to serve his own political 
ends, and to strengthen his interests with the Legitimist 
class ; and because Honorine had hardly any dowry, her 
parents listened to his propositions and sent for their little 
girl from school, in order that she might be presented to 
the man whose property she was to become during the 


PAUL1NE*S DIARY. 


21 


ensuing month. Delaunay had resolved that the child 
who was to ‘be made over to him should pursue unharassed 
by marital interference her own little scheme of life. He 
was profoundly sceptical of the average woman’s mental 
capacity or moral strength, but believed, like most of his 
nation, that the superstitious element in her character 
should be fostered, as exercising a restraining power 
against the wants of her emotional nature, which might 
otherwise find an outlet in love-making. Hence he was 
willing that Honorine should be on the best of terms with 
her confessor, and was prepared to approve of her con- 
tinuing in his house the religious exercises which had 
alternated with the meals and needlework during her 
life at the convent. But the deputy speedily discovered 
that his child-wife was not of the order of which 
confiding devotes are made. Her bright black eyes 
shone with keenly awakened interest when she first 
heard his voice in the Assembly. In a different way, 
but with a charming assumption of wifely responsi- 
bility, the little pensionnaire held forth to the man of 
letters as soon as she found herself alone with him, 
recalling the heads of his discourse, requesting the eluci- 
dation of uncomprehended sentences, daring even to 
question some of his opinions, and explaining the reason 
of her questioning them. Staggered and charmed, her 
husband took her upon his knees, and thenceforth she 
became his friend and pupil. Her quick and retentive 
brain grasped the most complicated subjects. She sub- 
stituted Montesquieu and Voltaire for Bossuet and 
F^nelon, and before the birth of her little girl studied 
“Emile” with ardour. Delaunay’s was hardly a suc- 
cessful career, but he was always the first of men in 
his wife’s eyes. Under the Second Empire he obtained 
an appointment in French Guiana, willingly expatriating 
himself irom a country where the prevailing system of 
government irritated and goaded him, but to disturb 
which he felt would be worse than useless. From 
French Guiana he was transferred to Sydnev, and in 
Sydney, many years later, he died. Their first child, 
Pauline’s mother, asserted the effect of her having 
imbibed Rousseau at the fountain-head, by proving 
herself essentially a child of nature, and threatening to 
enact the rule of “La Nouveile Heloise” if she were 


22 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


not allowed to marry a curly-headed midshipman of 
nineteen. The boy and girl were therefore mated, and 
in three months’ time they quarrelled perpetually, and 
ran to Pbre and Mere Delaunay to conaplain of each 
other. “ We will take her home again,” they said at 
last, wearied out by these constantly recurring scenes. 
A grimmer arbiter, however, stepped in unexpectedly, 
and settled the connubial disputes for ever. A small 
tombstone in a closed-up cemetery in Sydney re- 
cords that it is sacred to the memory of Rosalie, 
beloved wife of Guthrie Vyner ; and it further adds, 
in neatly tabulated sentences, that she died in child- 
birth, at eighteen. Neither Montesquieu nor Rousseau 
availed when her mother beheld the statuesque corpse 
of her wilful darling lifted into the loathsome coffin. 

Guthrie cried and sobbed like a penitent boy, and 
sailed away to England, where he had yet to go 
through his higher examinations before he could aspire 
to a lieutenancy. There remained behind a solemn 
baby, with wistful brown eyes and a pale face. They 
called her Pauline, as a tribute to Henri Delaunay’s 
recollection of his mother, and loved her with an 
intensity not dictated by the principles of sound 
philosophy. Ten years later occurred an unexpected 
contingency. A second child was born to Madame 
Delaunay. This time she did not read Rousseau, 
but kept the little Pauline constantly by her side, 
and recounted to her in broken English the traits 
which had distinguished her mother as a child. 
When Chubby’s wrinkled little visage was first 
brought to his niece to be kissed, the child con- 
sidered him critically. “ Will it always be so red ? ” 
she asked at last, and on being assured that, from a 
miniature Chocktaw Indian, it would develop into a 
sort of animated wax doll, she was apparently much 
relieved. 

Her uncle Chubby began his career as her plaything — 
it is said that she held him head downwards as an experi- 
ment in the minority of his babyhood. His first steps 
and first words were to her matters of the profoundest 
interest. From plaything he became playmate and com- 
panion. She did not think it possible that she could ever 
love any human being as she loved Chubby. Her father 


PAULINE’S DIARY. 


23 


meant simply a vapid young man, who some years ago had 
paid a flying visit to the Colonies, and had come to the 
North Shore to see his little girl. She had been very shy, 
and he had been in the predicament of increasing her 
shyness. 

Pauline was not sorry when papa said good-bye. He 
was at Malta now, whither, every three months, she 
despatched four pages filled with her square handwriting, 
at a great cost of labour to herself, and a sense of immu- 
nity from trouble for another quarter of a year. Her 
grandfathers death happened while Chubby was still 
a baby, and Pauline dated from it the hard expression 
that came at times into Madame Delaunay’s eyes. She 
remembered seeing her grandmother beating her hands 
on the coverlet which concealed her husband’s body in 
an abandonment of despair. Madame Delaunay could 
speak of Rosalie, and habitually cried when she spoke 
of her. Of her husband she never spoke, and when 
Pauline was inquisitive in the matter of family clironicles, 
Fifine would tell Mademoiselle of her bon papa, and 
assure her that it was a menage comrne il n’y en a pas 
when he was alive. Whereupon Mademoiselle would 
be seized with a spontaneous sentiment of pity for her 
grandmother, as she pictured Chubby in Monsieur 
Delaunay’s place and herself in Madame’s. She tried 
hard on this particular night to soften her mental atti- 
tude towards her grandmother by recalling all that Fifine 
had told her, but Madame Delaunay’s rejuvenescent 
period of the day had set in, and the jets of gas overhead 
threw their light on two smooth fronts of black hair, 
artistically fastened to a flattering edifice of the haziest 
crape, and a face which seemed to reject sympathy. 
The same light flickered over the bronze coronal which 
surmounted Pauline’s head and brought out strange 
metallic gleams of dark red gold. The little white frill 
clinging caressingly round her small round throat 
encircled a neck soft and white like a child’s. There 
was mute resistance in Pauline’s entire attitude. Her 
eyes, in which, when she was excited, you saw some 
wandering sparks of the colour which crept round the 
" twisted coils of her dark hair, were moodily fixed on 
the book before her. Her red rebellious lips moved 
unwillingly. The crimson background of the pru 


24 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


Dieu threw into relief her colourless face, suggesting 
a study by Van Dyck. There was promise of much 
future majesty in the line which swept from her ear 
downwards, recalling to any one who had closely studied 
it '"a certain side-view of the “Venus de Milo,” as she 
^ands on her pedestal in the Louvre, Queen regnante by 
right of the dignity whicli no mutilation can take from 
her. But Pauline’s profile, distinguished by an infantine 
nose with an upward turn in it, in nowise resembled 
that of a Greek goddess, but possessed rather a certain 
defiant originality of its own, asserting its beauty in 
the face of all the rules of art which have ever mapped 
out the exact proportions of the nose and chin by rule 
of thumb. 

“ Tenez^^' said Madame Delaunay, passing her a needle 
to thread, after five minutes’ fruitless probing at an eye 
which was apparently always to the right or the left 
of the needle itself. Pauline turned the Philosophie 
Positive on its face, and lifted two abstracted brown 
eyes to the task. 

The needle was submissive in her deft fingers, and she 
was on the point of restoring it with the air of a tragedy- 
queen who delivers a cup of poison to her betrayer, 
when she perceived that the hard look had become quite 
blotted out by a sort of gathering mist which obscured 
her grandmother’s spectacles. Pauline is down on her 
knees in an instant ; the Crokers’ party assumes the pro- 
portions of a witches’ dance, and she herself is a matricide 
whose right hand should be lopped off before she is led 
to a well-merited execution. 

'■'‘Petite granPmere, do be angry, please, but don’t be 
sorry, I implore you. Why don’t you put me en 
penitence, like Chubby? I never want to dance again 
unless it is a pas seul in the verandah. It is all the 
fault of my instincts. Fourier would put me in a section 

of dancing dervishes, and I should skip for the rest of 

the community, and you, petite granPmhre, would belong 
to the priesthood and instruct us how to live while I 
was capering in the sunshine ! ’’ 

Madame Delaunay rubs her spectacles with a half 

smile in her eyes, and Chubby thinks the moment an 
auspicious one for neglecting the pencil-case of his 

brother-in-law’s grocer, and making a sudden onslaught 


PAU LINENS DIARY. 


25 


on a peaceable-looking cat, blinking in dreamless repose 
on the hearthrug. 

Vis done, mon enfant, is it then for the distraction 
pur et simple of the manoeuvres of the dance that you 
regret so much not to go to-night ? ” 

The eyes that were baffled by the little hole in the 
needle’s end are searching enough now ; the eyes that 
made so light of the little hole are the eyes that are 
brought to confusion. Pauline turns up the book. She 
would fain take refuge in Comte. 

“It is for the tout ensemble, grand’ m^re ; the dancing 
more especially, of course.” 

“Thou art a Jesuit, my daughter! Is it that the first 
comer inspires thee with so much interest, that thou 
wouldst forget thy mother’s fate and listen to the first 
man who has made soft eyes in thy direction ? ” 

“But he hasn’t made soft eyes, grand’ mire ! I only 
wish he would.” This latter half sotto voce. 

“ How knowest thou, then, of whom I speak ? ” 

The blood which comes so grudgingly into Pauline’s 
cheeks finds its way there now, and paints them for an 
instant with a colour like the inside of a shell. 

“ I know you want to put me to confusion, grand’- 
mlre, and I know I don’t deserve it. Please let us 
return to our muttons in the guise of Comte, and tell 
me whether I may skip his prosy reflections on history.” 

Madame Delaunay does not reply, and Pauline sees 
that her thoughts have left the Philosophic Positive, 
and that bygone scenes are shaping themselves before 
her eyes — scenes such as we all live over again, wonder- 
ing the while to what end has been all the heart-sick- 
ness, the disappointment, the despair. The poor woman 
was like that scalt child who is so proverbially wary 
of approaching the fire ; to her the name of lover was 
as the name of a ghoul, who would devour her little 
white maiden by stealth. Her granddaughter ponders 
on the last words that had been said. Has Sir Francis 
Segrave really made soft eyes? She thinks not. Has 
she herself betrayed by ever so slight a change that 
he has found favour in her eyes? it is a humiliating 
suggestion. Pauline refutes it angrily in her own mind, 
and registers an inward vow tliat neither her grand- 
mother nor any one else in the whole world shall 


26 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


ever have the faintest reason for conjecturing that she 
has given Sir Francis a passing thought. With this 
laudable determination duly recorded in her brain, she 
makes a feint of yawning. 

“ Grand mhe I Comte’s positivism always sends me to 
the regions of dreamland. Bo7i soir, et dormez Men / 
Chubby, if it were not derogating from your dignity as 
an uncle, I should take you under my arm and carry you 
straight off to bed.” 


CHAPTER IV. 

GEORGE GOES A-COURTING, 


“ Doubt thoii the stars are fire, 

Doubt that the sun doth move, 

Doubt truth to be a liar. 

But never doubt I love.” — S hakspere. 

In New South Wales, spring had at length given place 
to sultry, scorching summer, 'i'he hot sun shone fiercely 
down upon city, and suburb. The narrow streets of 
Sydney, lying in a glare of white heat, hid themselves 
in clouds of warm dust, which the wind carried round 
in a giddy whirl, together with straws and odds-and- 
ends, and all sorts of refuse, to be turned to account 
for the good of generations yet unborn ; nature being 
the only power which can balance her profit and loss 
account to a hair. In the evening, when the sun, arrayed 
like young Joseph in a coat of many colours, sank 
slowly behind the distant hills, and tite small islets in 
the harbour, catching the reflection of his fading glories, 
glowed under his copper-coloured ligiu, and soft cool 
breezes breathing of brine and freshness came m from 
the ocean — the warm, weary inhabitants sauntered out 
info gardens and verandahs, to rejoice in an existence 
which had seemed some hours before an unnecessary 
and superfluous burden. Then the waited-upon division 
of mankind, thirstily inclined, refreshed itself with ices 
and tea and strong waters ; or, metaphysically inclined, 
lost itself in vague day-dreams or fancif^ul speculations ; 
or, actively inclined, betook itself to croquet, to riding, 
or to swimming ; and the waiting-upon division ran 
hither and thither to minister to its wants, perchance 
thirsty or ruminative itself, but habituated to ignore its 
own sensations for the behoof of the afore-mentioned 
lavouied portion of the human race. 

37 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


2S 

On such an evening as this, somewhere about the 
middle of January, George Drafton, giddy with the sound 
of the relentless screw, left the deck of the S.S. City 
of Adelaide to betake himself to the Royal Hotel, where 
he fell asleep that night with Pauline’s name on his 
lips. He woke in the morning to see the pale light 
dimly shaping out the unfamiliar objects from the gloom 
and darkness around him. 

The details of his toilet were no unimportant matter 
that morning to George. 

“ How vain we are ! how pleased to show 
Our clothes, and call them fine and new ! ” 

says Dr. Watts, or some such eminent divine, in the 
fervour of his pious zeal, ever ready to nail backsliding 
Christians, and mercifully to convert small foibles into 
crimes for which Divine wrath is waiting a favourable 
opportunity to pounce upon us and consign us, according 
to Dr. Watts, to a ‘^dreadful hell with everlasting pains.” 
Sad I that even the pathos of this outburst of poetry, 
taught us as boys and girls, should not keep us as men 
and women from due attention to the outer husk, which 
Carlyle would say converts “ man into a rag-screen, over- 
heaped with shreds and tatters, naked from the charnel- 
house of Nature.” 

Be that as it may, there are some rag-screens who 
dispose of their rags as Nature disposes of her divers 
coverings. Her princes and magnates may be said to 
be represented by her smiling landscapes and harmonious 
tints, and her beggars and castaways by her arid deserts 
and Dead Sea levels. We do well to copy her soft colours 
and varied radiance, having helped so often to deck her 
trees and flowers when the spark of self-consciousness 
was not there to torment the form we now assume. If 
there be “sermons in stones,” shall there not be sermons 
in the mirror likewise, where man sees daily the shadow 
of a shadow, come — he knows not whence, going — he 
knows not whither. 

It was not until George’s mirror threw back a satis- 
factory reflection, not until he had arranged his cravat 
with a view to showing the requisite minimum of white 
shirt, that he made his way to the public break fast-table, 
and thence to the nearest livery stables, a conscious 


GEORGE GOES A-COURTING. 


29 


look on his face of expectant but not of assured triumph. 
He surveyed the hacks with the eye of a connoisseur. 
In the groom, a thick-set man with only one eye to the 
good, he discovered a kindred spirit. To him he re- 
counted how he had won the Hay Steeplechase the 
year before last, and the year after, with a little horse 
of his own breaking in. 

He stopped before a chestnut mare and examined her 
critically. 

“ As nice a filly, that, sir,” said the one-eyed man, 
“as ever you put your leg across,” and he led the mare 
out into the yard. “ Too good for her work, by 
half!” 

George nodded approval; he did not rhapsodise about 
strange horses. 

“She looks to have some good points about her,” 
he said ; but he allowed the mare to be saddled, and 
rode her away. 

I don’t think he bestowed much thought upon her points 
after all. Memory was very busy with him just then, and 
as he trotted along he was recalling old impressions with 
a concentration of thought not usual to him. 

It was one of those days when man is perforce an 
optimist for the time being. Sweet summer scents floated 
about in the warm balmy air; the bustle and hum of 
the far-off city was softened into an indistinct drowsy 
murmur by the distance. 

Madame Delaunay’s house was some few miles out 
of Sydney, and George’s imagination transported him to 
the first occasion upon which he had travelled over that 
road. It was two years back he remembered — a day 
something like this. He had a letter in his pocket 
addressed — 

“A Madame, 

“ Madame Delaunay. 

“ Aux bons sotns de M. George DraftonP 

The French Consul whom he had met at his' uncle’s 
house at dinner the week before had given him this 
letter, in an effusive desire to show a due appreciation 
of Josiah’s Mum and Chateau Lafitte. George remem- 


30 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


bered that he was on foot, and while trudging along he 
had debated with himself as to the desirability of pre- 
senting M. le ConsuFs letter at all. He had nearly 
turned back when he reached the gate, arguing that he 
did not want any “Frenchified acquaintances in New 
South Wales. A priggish lot ! I’d bet a sovereign ! ” he 
had thought, as he stood on the white doorstep with 
the knocker in his hand. “I hope to the Lord they’re 
not at home!” 

On what very trifles do the great events of our lives 
hang ! You may reach the turning-point of your career 
to-day, and never know it for years hence until you look 
back through the vista of unheeded years and say, 
“Such and such an event decided me. If So-and-so 
had not met me, I should not have been here 1 ” Or 
carry the principle to its extreme, and you may trace 
your very existence to a chance. If your mother had 
not sprained her ankle, she could never have known 
your father. Where then would have been, oh subtle 
questioner? George, you may be sure, had no notion that 
when the door opened it would open upon his fate. 

As the servant had shown him into the hall, a young 
girl ran breathlessly down the staircase which faced the 
entrance to the house. An instant later and George 
would have missed her, would never have seen her at all 
in all probability, and his destiny and hers would never, 
for good or evil, have crossed each other’s paths. 

But the relentless sisters who weave our fates from 
their never-ending flax had already entangled the threads 
of George Drafton’s and Pauline Vyner’s lives to come. 
It looked a tangled maze enough in their shrivelled fingers ; 
here on earth the beginning of the knot had not as yet 
appeared. 

George, still living over again every incident of that 
first meeting, remembered there had been a little boy 
waiting in the hall dressed in walking attire, and Pauline 
had run downstairs so fast that George had almost 
come into collision with her at the drawing-room door 
near the foot of the stairs. He saw her now as he had 
seen her then, the parted red lips half stammering out 
a laughing apology, her childish figure as she walked 
demurely past him and gave her hand to Chubby; he 
wondered afresh why it was that Pauline’s face, Pauline’s 


GEORGE GOES A-COURTING, 


31 


expression, Pauline’s whole self, in fact, should have im- 
printed itself on his heart after so indelible a fashion, 
not for a few weeks or months even, but for life, and 
(as he told himself) for eternity. He remembered that 
the “ priggish ” abode had thenceforth become an Arcadia 
for him, that he had invented a thousand excuses for 
going there with a diplomacy he had not supposed him- 
self capable of exercising, and that he had felt intuitively 
that Pauline as yet took no heed of his love. In his 
anxiety to do something to further his cause, he made 
a confidante of Madame Delaunay on the eve of his 
departure from Sydney, and she had allowed him to 
flounder through Iiis sentimental narrative without be- 
stowing upon him the timely assistance of a single 
ejaculation. No one knew better than this discriminat- 
ing Frenchwoman the various stages of an affaire de 
cmir. 

“II a la tete mont^e,” she had said to herself; “cela 
passera, mais si on ce contrarie il serait capable de faire 
une sottise.” 

She, was, moreover, beholden to him for his reticence, 
because it had deferred the arrival of an epoch in 
Pauline’s life to which she looked forward with fore- 
bodings of the gloomiest description. She felt that the 
principles which had served as her own guide in life 
had not saved her child from all sorts of bitter ex- 
periences, and she feared that Pauline’s application 
of the same principles meant the seizing of any apparent 
gratification without forethought. She recognised an 
element in her grandchild’s character which George 
had failed to perceive, and she was touched by the 
delicacy which prevented a young man overwhelmed 
by the pressure of a first strong sentiment from con- 
verting a naive school-girl into the precocious damsel 
called by the Saturday Review a “ green peach.” 

So she replied to him^ encouragingly — 

“ It is necessary to be reasonable. Monsieur Shorge. 
You cannot devellaupe the sentiment you seek to 
awaken in a child. At present she heeds but her class 
and her ami de coeur^ the little Ernest. I am con- 
vinced that you are a brave young man, and your 
research of my granddaughter does me honour, but 
I will exact one condition of your part. During two 


32 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


years come not again, and if you do not change of 
advice, we will discuss the affair at the end of that 
time.” 

“ Et il ne m’ennuiera pas encore, cet apotre-lk,” 
she thought, as she watched the departure of the 
dejected George, with a sense of triumph in her diplo- 
matic skill. But she built her hopes on a too certain 
belief in her own powers of penetration. George, 
much to his own astonishment, did not change of 
advice,” as Madame Delaunay had foreseen, during the 
two probationary years ; that is to say, among the young 
women whom he flirted with, none created in him the 
feeling which Pauline had excited. • “ There’s not one 
of them that can hold a candle to her,” he said to 
himself after dancing at a Melbourne ball with guile- 
less partners, who smiled upon Josiah Carp’s nephew. 
His chief dread now was lest he should find her altered ; 
no longer the quaint admixture of w’omanliness and child- 
ishness which had taken him captive at first. Then, as 
to her looks 

But at this point George’s meditations came, to an 
end. The familiar iron gate was before him ; his 
fingers trembled as he leant over his horse’s side and 
unfastened the bolt. 

The tapering firs w'ere nodding to each other in a 
stately fashion as he rode over the white quartz which 
glittered in his path. A whole conclave was gathered 
in the verandah, and he moved towards it with beating 
pulses. Fifine in the . centre of the group, gesticulating 
to a Chinaman, who, with the stolid apathy characteristic 
of a Chinese hawker, was watching the barbarians 
handle his ivory fans, his pagodas, and his disjointed 
acrobats — Madame Delaunay, whose youthful period of 
the day had not yet set in, standing at the open French 
window, in genuine foreign neglige (few Frenchwomen look 
dressed before twelve o’clock) — and leaning over the back 
of a verandah chair, her chin resting on her hand, her eyes 
fixed on the wash-leather face of the yellow-ochre-hued 
Mongolian, stood George’s idol, Pauline. 

Of a surety, the carbon and oxygen which sustain' the 
breath of life in these tw^o creatures’ bodies must have 
come from different sources. The same trees and flowers 
cannot have prepared the air they breathe; cannot have 


GEORGE GOES A-COURTING. 


33 


helped to dower the one with a creamy skin of softest 
texture, and the other with a repulsive hide of tan ; 
the one with lustrous eyes which flash out messages 
from the soul within, the other with winking slits which 
peer out uneasily upon the surrounding foe. 

Pendant from John Chinaman’s cranium is his long 
unwholesome tail of coarse black yarn ; swept up in 
an encircling glory from Pauline’s white neck, her dark 
hair is packed in a compact mass against her shapely 
little head. All this time she is silently espousing the 
cause of her unconscious foil. 

In Australia it is a sort of established custom to beat 
down a Chinaman. Were he to ask you half the value 
of his ware, you would of necessity offer him a quarter. 
He has therefore learnt to forestall you by asking twice 
its value, and then accepting the sum you may bestow 
upon him with apparent indifference. 

Fifine, in a sprightly cap, which savours of the “ Boule- 
vard du Temple,” is bidding for a little teapot on 
Madame Delaunay’s behalf. She holds it up before the 
Chinaman, and looks at him insinuatingly. 

“ How mosh, Jean?” 

“ Tiddely-sixpence.” 

“Oh! tiddely-sixpence too mosh! Tree shilling-! dat 
do you ? Come, say now, tree shilling ! you nevare 
get more ! Vill you do so ? Come now ! For Madame 
— ^is it not ? ” 

The Mongolian shakes his head. “No savey — me no 
savey,” he says. 

“ Dites done, Mamzelle Pauline — mais je vous demande 
un peu ? Faut il se laisser piller par ce drole ! ” 

Pauline comes to the rescue. “Let me arrange it 

with him, Fifine. Now, John Oh, Mr. Drafton, 

where did you come from ? How do you do ? I had 
no idea you were in Sydney ! ” 

“I only arrived last night,” says George, his eyes 
assuming that uncomfortably tender expression some men 
cannot conceal in the presence of the woman they love. 
“ If you will allow me, I will just tie my moke up to 
the verandah railings.” 

Madame Delaunay accords him her hand, with rage 
in her heart, but in her voice there is nothing but an 
inflexion of courtly welcome. 

C 


34 


JN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


Enfin, Monsieur Shorge ! You come to find us en 
prise with what you call a Celestial ! ” 

“ Let me tackle him, madame,” says George, when she 
releases his hand. “ I’m used to dealing with these 
fellows! Now, John, what for you sell this?” hQlding 
up the teapot. 

It is likewise a received custom that, in order to im- 
prove a Chinaman’s diction, he should be addressed in 
the sort of gibberish which is usually talked to babies 
— no doubt with the same end in view. 

“ Tiddely-sixpence.” 

“Tiddely devils! I beg your pardon. Miss Vyner ! 
It’s the only talk they understand. Him dear for half- 
crown, John ! No one give you two shillings. Here 
you are ! There’s the half-crown. Hand over the 
teapot.” 

“ Welly good,” replies John, in the same tone in 
which he would have accepted five shillings, or received 
the assurance that his head was to be cut off the same 
evening. Chinamen are like cows, who are fatalists 
from instinct, and who would be run over with supreme 
complacency rather than move out of the way. 

George deprecates indignantly the refunding of his 
two-and-sixpence, and the Mongolian shoulders his yoke, 
wherefrom depend his two portable markets, and runs 
off at the particular jog-trot affected by his countrymen. 

“Do sit down, Mr. Drafton,” Pauline says, while Mrs. 
Delaunay sweeps backward into the drawing-room, all 
her latent dread coming to life in her expression. 
“ The verandah is our ante-chamber, our reception-room, 
our everything in the summer-time.” 

It was easy to see indeed that the verandah did duty 
for various purposes. Jt was full of lounges which had 
a marvellous knack of detaining their occupants for an 
unreasonable time. Here Chubby battled with his 
Ollendorff, and Pauline filled the vases with clusters of 
fragrant azaleas. At one end the verandah was enclosed 
in glass, and adorned by a collection of flower-pots 
dignified by the name of the “ conservatory.” 

It was probably an unconscious sympathy for rotundity 
in any form which had made Chubby lay claim to all 
the fat pots that had been brought into the place. 
They stood in an imposing row, like the trunks of beef- 


GEORGE GOES A^COURTING. 


35 


eaters, labelled in hieroglyphics — Chubby, a medicinal 
plant — or Chubby, a poisonous plant — or Chubby, a 
plant not to he touched. In Pauline’s pots, the ferns 
springing each out of its little clump of moss carried 
all sorts of suggestions of cool rivulets, and wet river- 
banks, and the subdued splashing of fresh water. Chubby 
cultivated a carrot-top in emulation of Pauline’s ferns, 
and watched with childish malice for the tripping of 
such visitors as did not distinguish immediately between 
carrots and ferns. 

George is wondering in what respect Pauline has 
altered as he sinks, rather precipitately, into a low-seated 
chair at her side. He cannot realise that this grand- 
looking girl with the colourless face and marvellous 
eyes is the child into whose docile fingers he first put 
the reins only two years ago. He would like the old 
Pauline to come back for a moment that he might find 
himself on an easy footing with her, and when this was 
established he would like the new Pauline to take her 
place and remain exactly as he sees her now. Well 
content, he lets his eyes rest upon her and says nothing. 
Pauline, meanwhile, has .mentally registered three things 
in George’s favour ; that he is broader, that he is 
browner, and that he does not suck the knob handle of 
his whip as of yore. 

“ Well, Mr. Drafton ? ’’ she asks at last, in a sort of 
mock inquisitorial style, so entirely a part of the old 
Pauline that all the diffidence engendered by the two 
years’ absence melts out of George’s manner at once, 
“ has your fond uncle given you a holiday, or have 
you run away from him at last } ” 

“ Not much fear of my running away, so long as 
he does not give me too much of his company. Last 
time he showed up at the station we made it pretty 
hot for him one way and another. You should have 
seen him round up the shearers ; but I didn’t let him 
‘boss around’ much while I was in the way.” 

“ I'm afraid you won’t be the prop of your poor old 
relative’s declining days ! You used to speak of him 
in a much more dutiful spirit. But in another way 
you’re not a bit changed. Do you remember how I 
used to say that I always felt the want of a pocket 
dictionary when you talked to me?^’ 


36 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


George laughed. In all good faith he would have 
said of himself that he had the “gift of the gab.” 

“Oh, because Tve got hold of a few Amerrcanisms, 
you mean ! That’s nothing. That’s Yankee style. 
By George ! you should hear some of the Melbourne 
fellows talk. They’re half Yanks as it is ! ” 

“ How do you mean ? In their use of slang, or 
in their ideas ? ” 

“ Oh ! the whole set out ! They go in for all the 
games — poker and euchre — and the drinks ! All the 
best drinks come from America.” 

Just a shade of vexation sweeps across Pauline’s face. 

“You won’t take me au serieux, Mr. Drafton ? I don’t 
suppose their ideas are embodied in their drinks.” 

“ Don’t be rough on me, Miss Vyner,” says George, 
with cunning humility. “ It’s as much as I can do 
to take stock of my own ’ideas just at this moment. 
You don’t know how I’ve looked forward to this day. 
You don’t know” 

The break in George’s voice at this point gives 
such terrible earnestness to his unmeaning words 
that the girl is fain to stop their flow with a half 
irritated sense of frightened triumph. His tone is a 
sudden revelation to her, but it awakens no responsive 
sentiment on her part. 

“ Please don’t mind my interrupting you, but do 
you ever chase the Chinamen now? — you know” — for 
George, brought back to the most realistic of his re- 
miniscences, loses the tender expression for one of 
genuine bewilderment. “ Oh ! you’ve not forgotten, surely,” 
— with a deprecatory nod — “ the Chinamen that stole 
the gold ? ” 

“ Oh ! ah ! ” says George, relieved. “ When I was 
on the Coliban. I know ! The fellows that fossicked 
for gold in the river bed. I used to chivy them up 
with the stockwhip.” 

“Yes, that was it” — she is anxious to pursue the 
topic of the Chinamen, having made shipwreck of the 
Americans and their ideas. “ And — and — you don’t — 
w'hat do you call it? — chivy them now?” 

But Mr. Drafton’s feelings are not to be diverted 
from the groove into which he has directed them. 
He looks fixedly at her fair face. 


GEORGE GOES A-COURTING. 


37 


“ What a one you are for remembering things ! 
Still I’d lay level money that I remember more 
about those talks than you do. Do you remember 
what you promised me that time your hair came 
down near the Point ? ” 

He leans forward eagerly and sees the tardy colour 
burning in the downcast face. But there is more 
confusion than pleasure in its expression. 

“ I remember,” she answers hesitatingly, “ that — I — 
have — said a great many things in my life for which 
I should not care to be called to account now. In 
fact, I think it would put a stop to most ordinary 
conversation if a shorthand writer could jot down all 
one said at the time of one’s saying it. There would 
be so much to be ashamed of afterwards.” 

She smoothes down the folds of her morning dress, 
after delivering herself of a sentiment which might 
have originated in the mind of a Spartan matron. 
George uneasily wonders whether he has been snubbed. 
He gazes earnestly at vacancy for an inspiration. The 
t2A[‘pinus cygneus on the grass plot in front, with their 
candle-like cones standing each in stiff distinctness a 
little apart from the other, look like giant Christmas 
trees all ready to be lit up for a fete. 

“ How the pines have shot up ! ” he says aloud, 
with a somewhat subdued intonation. “ How did the 
croquet ground turn out? If you don’t mind, I’d like 
tp take a turn round the old place.” 

“ And I shall like to show it you,” Pauline replies, 
anxious to make amends for the douche she has applied 
to George’s fervour. “ Wait a moment while I get my 
hat ; and shall I send the boy to take your horse to 
the stable ? ” 

“ Oh, she’ll stand right enough.” 

“ Well, will you have some claret and water after 
your ride ? or would you like to concoct one of 
those ‘ drinks ’ you were so enthusiastic about just 
now?” 

“ I wasn’t enthusiastic about them. May I never 
touch a drop of liquor again if I care for drink ! I’d 
rather stick to water for the rest of my days than 
have you think I was given to swiping ! ” 

“ I shouldn’t know what it meant, if you told me 


38 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


you were given to it. But you haven’t told me what 
you’ll have.” 

“ Nothing — upon my honour ! Fll wait for you here' 
in the verandah.” 

He rose from his chair and sauntered towards one 
of the pillars as Pauline disappeared, where he beat 
time with his whip to an inward accompaniment of 
“Tommy Dodd.” His elation was sobered by the grave 
aspect of Madame Delaunay, who came noiselessly up 
to him. She too felt that he had gained in manliness 
since she had seen him. His beard and moustache 
were bushier. There were traces, she fancied, of 
thought and meditation in his eyes, which had acquired 
indeed a more earnest expression than formerly. George 
himself would have supposed they showed traces of 
loo-parties and unfulfilled “Doubles,” and would most 
probably have prescribed himself a “ Pick-me-up.” He 
was somewhat in awe of Pauline’s grandmother, never 
feeling himself quite at ease in her presence. He was 
troubled .with a sort of latent consciousness that were 
it possible for her to gauge his abilities and strength 
of character, and to see, laid bare before her, the 
inner workings of his mind, she would send him away, 
as he stood there bare-headed in the sunshine, and 
conjure him, for Pauline’s sake and his own, never to 
come again on the errand which had brought him 
to-day. There was an uneasy fear at work within him, 
whenever he was alone with her, that she would go 
beyond his depth ; arid in a very modified degree, he 
had something of the same feeling with regard to 
Pauline. 

“ I won’t give her a chance of flooring me,” he said 
to himself ; “ I’ll take the bull bv the horns — see if I 
don’t ! ” 

He drew forward a chair for her deferentially, and 
began with a preliminary clearing of the throat. It 
was his custom to call her Madam, because she went 
by the name of “Madame” in the household, and 
once long ago, when he had said “ Mrs. Delaunay,” 
every one in the room had looked as shocked as if 
he ha^jc^poken of the Queen as Mrs. Albert. 

“You see, Madam, I’ve been as good as my word ! 
You said I could try — don’t you remember saying so? 


GEORGE GOES A-COURTING. 


39 


— that I could try for myself at the end of two years. 
I’m more in earnest than ever about what I told you. 
You won’t stand in my light now, will you ?” 

He was twitching at the leaves of the scarlet passion- 
flower that had twisted itself round the verandah railings 
as he spoke. George had no repose of manner. When 
he was agitated, hands, feet, and eyebrows were all at 
work. 

Madame Delaunay’s English all but forsakes her in 
the desire to discourage him, without implying, in too 
uncomplimentary a fashion that she does not want him 
for a grandson-in-law. 

“ One is not pressed. Monsieur Shorge ; one is not 
pressed ! ” 

“ I don’t know what you call pressed. Madam ! After 
a fellow’s had only one thought in his head, night and 
day, for over two years, it’s rather rough on him to be 
. crossed just when he thinks he’s got a pretty fair show 
of success.” 

“But do you figure to yourself seriously that Pauline 
would render you happy ? ” 

She did not ask him whether he thought he could 
render Pauline happy. Dividing men, according to the 
rule of a great French novelist, into the two classes of 
those who understand women and those who don’t, 
George must have belonged to the latter division. 
Madame Delaunay herself had known the rare bliss 
of being associated with one of the other kind — a man 
who had made her happy through all the best years 
of her life in the best possible way, by never falling 
short of her first estimate of him. Enthusiasm for a 
pursuit is only a more satisfying feeling than enthusiasm 
for an individual because it is not attended by the 
same invariable disappointment. If men only knew the 
heart-sickness of discovering all the alloy, the dross, the 
common earth, so carefully concealed during the days 
when, like birds, they attune their voices and smooth 
their plumes to go a-courting, they would maintain some 
few delusions a little longer, when the courting was 
over. Women as a rule are easily imposed upon, and 
it is clumsy policy to shatter their idols when they are 
so anxious for something to worship. 

There was so dreary an intonation in Madame 


40 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Delaunay’s somewhat laboured enunciation, as she put 
this question to George, that it almost forced him into 
an instant’s deep thought. 

“ I’d take my chance of that, thank you,” he said ; 
“and mind you, Madam, Miss Pauline shouldn’t want 
for a thing I had it in my power to give her. She’d 
have the best mount in the district, I can tell you; 
and she could always have a friend to stop with her 
any time she felt dull.” 

Pauline did not hear this elaborate scheme on her 
behoof. She came out of the house in a big straw 
hat, which George, under his present impression that 
she was an angel, dimly connected with a halo radiating 
from the aureole which encircled her head. Plis angel 
led him to the croquet lawn, discoursing the while upon 
the laying down of turf as if that branch of practical 
gardening had been included in her school-bill under 
the heading of “ Washing, gymnastics, extras, &c.” — 
thence to the lemon grove, where she rigorously confined 
George to the subject of shaddocks, and finally to the 
new bathing-house, where he pleads sudden fatigue, and 
finds a resting-place on the narrow strip of beach which 
fronts the bay. Pauline is fain to rest herself too. 

The tide most quietly ebbing beneath them, as it 
rises and falls leaves with each heave a long line of 
broken shells and tangled sea-weed and parti-coloured 
scum upon the sand at their feet. These are the 
hostages the great ocean deposits with mother earth as 
it shrinks from her shores, hostages which it cannot 
fail to reclaim ere long and toss and tumble in its 
briny embrace, and with monotonous regularity leave 
behind it again and sweep away again as it has done 
for so many thousand years in the past, as it will 
do for so many thousand years in the future. The 
warm ^ir about them is trembling and quivering, like 
the air which dances over a roaring bush-fire ; the out- 
lines of the distant hills are soft and hazy under the 
bright hot sun, not sharp and distinct against the blue 
sky, but seeming to melt into it and blend with it as 
the deep colour on the petals of an iris merges into 
the soft surrounding hues. 

George is not incapable of being moved by such a 
scene, but he would like his companion to understand 


GEORGE GOES A-COURTING. 


At 

that he has not come all the way to Sydney only to 
admire a fine harbour on a hot morning. He regards 
the broad hat appealingly. 

“How well you are looking, Miss Pauline,” he says, 
for the third time, and now there is a suffusion of 
sentimental yearning in his eyes. “May I call you 
Miss Pauline? You don’t look like Miss Vyner, some- 
how.” 

“You must have expected to find me at the point 
of death, at the very least,” she answers, laughing shortly, 
“you seem so astonished to find me in ordinary health. 
You’re like grandma, who was so taken aback the other 
day because a rheumatic old woman whom she had 
treated to a blister told her she was pretty spry, and 
that she didn’t want any of her doctoring. Oh yes, 
call me Miss Pauline, of course, if you like ; only it’s 
a little like the gardener ; still, I don’t like being called 
Miss Vyner much either.’’ 

“Do you remember what I used to call you when I 
was here before? I’ve never forgotten those rides we 
had together — never. You can’t tell how often I’ve 
thought of them. I always said they were out and out 
the jolliest — I mean the happiest hours I ever spent in 
my life.” 

“ You must be very amiable to find so much happiness 
in teaching any one how to hold the reins properly. 
Who was your next pupil after me?” 

“ I didn’t want any more. I wouldn’t have had one 
for something after you.” 

“ An equivocal compliment, that ! How am I to 
take it?” 

“ Oh, you know what I mean,” says George, his senti- 
mentalism very genuine and red hot by this time. “ I’m 
no hand at paying compliments. That’s the vrorst of 
me. I feel fifty per cent, more than I can say. I’ve 
bottled up what I thought about you over two years 
and more. I can’t keep it in any longer. On my honour, 

I can’t. Don’t get up — ^^I entreat you. Don’t mind my 
taking your hand — just for one minute. I beseech you, 
Pauline, hear a fellow out ! Ever since I was here 
before that time, I’ve never had you out of my head 
for a day. Don’t be vexed with me! 1 wouldn’t have 
spoken about it now, only I couldn’t help it, somehow. 


42 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


I only want you to say you’re not fond of any one else, 
that’s all, and that you might get to care about me, you 
know. You can’t imagine — it’s no use telling you — the 
sort of feeling I’ve got for you. I didn’t think it was 
in me to care so much for any one.” . 

All this time Pauline is silent. Perhaps she scarcely 
hears the last part of his speech. George sees her pull 
her broad-brimmed hat closer over her downcast face; 
there is a pulse beating somewhere near her throat she 
never felt before, and her heart has taken to running a 
small race against it, so that she feels all throbs and beats 
from her brain downwards. 

His voice is more subdued than before. 

“Yjou’re not offended, Miss Pauline?” he asks. “I’ll 
go when you like, you know ; but won’t you give me 
some sort of a hope first ? I only came across to Sydney 
for this ! ” 

No answer. 

The soft sea breeze has freshened into a wind, and 
out at sea there are tiny flakes of white, dancing, bobbing, 
struggling with each other, appearing and disappearing, 
coming nearer, and pirouetting about the boats and ships 
like tiny sprites playing at hide-and-seek. 

George begins to feel uncomfortable. He applies him- 
self busily to the work of boring a hole in the sand at 
his feet with the butt end of his riding-whip. This is a 
drilling operation which requires some nicety. 

Next time he speaks his tones are hoarse. 

“There’ll be nothing left for me to do, I suppose, but 
to go and hang myself. My God ! it’s a nice thing to 
give yourself up heart and soul to one girl, and then to 
be treated to the cold shoulder ! ” 

There is such real passion in his voice that Pauline 
jumps up from her resting-place. 

“ Please don’t, Mr. Drafton ” — this very pleadingly. “ I 
do so wish you wouldn’t. Don’t you think we’d better 
come back to the house now ? ” 

She stands before him while George probes the' loose 
sand more viciously than ever, making never a move 
towards rising the while. 

“ Don’t what ? Don’t tell you what I had on the 
tip of my tongue a dozen times when I was here before ! 
If you’d waited as long as I have, you might be in 


GEORGE GOES A-COURTING. 


43 


a hurry to speak too. However, the murder’s out now, 
and I’m not sorry for it. O Pauline ! ” with a sudden 
imploring desperation ih his eyes, “ for heaven’s sake 
don’t drive me from you. I can be anything you 
choose to make me. Give me a chance — only one. 
Do you want me to go to the dogs altogether?” 

An expression of pained perplexity in Pauline’s face 
is all that he can see as he looks hungrily up at sher 
where she stands. 

She is a novice, and moreover a coward. 

In her embarrassment she pulls out a bit of frippery 
in the shape of a handkerchief from a little slit in her 
black silk apron, and twists it nervously round her wrist 
as she replies confusedly and with hesitation — 

“ You make me so sorry — for you, I mean. It isn’t 
my fault if I can’t care for anybody, much — in that 
way, at least — is it ? I never did. I don’t think I ever 
shall. But all sorts of things may happen in the future. 
Do let us forget what you said just now. Some one 
has been cooey-ing frantically to us for the last five 
minutes.” 

And George finds a loophole of hope in her answer. 
She is already half way yp the garden path before he 
overtakes her, and while he is w^ondering how to renew 
the attack, a dumpling of a boy with sagacious eyes hurls 
himself against Pauline, and walks by her side with an 
air of proprietorship. 

“ How d’ye do, little man ? ” says George condescend- 
ingly, putting out his hand. 

“ How do you do, sir ? ” says the little man stiffly, 
raising his garden hat. “You are an acquaintance of 
Paul — of Miss Vyners, I believe. I have the honour 
to be her maternal uncle.” 

All George’s wrought up feelings cannot prevent his 
breaking into a guffaw. 

Ah me ! Are they all on a par then ? Chubby’s 
dignity, and George’s longings, and Pauline’s aspira- 
tions? All an. outlet of the same force which pulls the 
strings that set us — earthly puppets — dancing for a while, 
until the dance of death whirls us out of sight and 
memory. 


CHAPTER V. 

TITTLE-TATTLE, 

** Words are like leaves, and where they most abound, 

Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.” 

—Pope. 

Jamesina Croker and her mamma were engrossed in 
the all-absorbing pursuit of matching, or endeavouring 
to match, a corner of grey silk, the size of a thumb-nail, 
with fringe of a like description, at Fimbria’s. An 
officious shopman had already outraged all their sense 
of the fitness of things by proposing to graft a shade 
of “ gree-purl ” upon a shade of “ gree-sangdray ” (this 
by the way, as a specimen of the shopman’s conception 
of the fore-mentioned words), and Miss Croker had 
remarked, in a “ stage aside,” that colour-blind people 
should not serve in shops. Judge then of the jaded 
condition of the lady and her daughter as they wearily 
returned to their carriage, waved therein by the fore- 
man. Their first active measure was to consult a little 
ivory tablet lying on the seat containing a list of the 
afternoon’s engagements. 

“To call on the Delaunays,” said Mrs. Croker 
languidly, having scratched through the name of Fim- 
bria with unnecessary vigour; “your papa insists on 
it, my dear. They’re people of shocking principles — 
quite shocking, I think — but it’s a matter of fact that 
they have the entree everywhere.” 

Mrs. Croker having been espoused for her china 
shepherdess complexion by a very rich man, at a time 
when she was wont to ground little children in the 
frailest possible foundations of orthography and the major 
scales, laid especial stress upon the social condition of 
all who were on her visiting list. 

Miss Jamesina inherited her mamma’s complexion of 
mind as well as of face. 

“ Pauline Vyner doesn’t go to half the places she’s asked 


TITTLE-TATTLE. 45 

to, ma ! Really it would be hard to say just what set she’s 
in. She’s never come properly out yet.” 

“ Madame Delaunay does nothing like anybody 
else,” replied her mother, promptly condemnatory; “she 
has dreadful notions. It’s all very well for your father 
to say she’s a foreigner. I’m sure there are almost as 
proper foreigners as English people. Look at that dear 
Madame Merle, who wauldn’t even let her groom gc 
out on Sunday unless he told her first what place of 
worship he meant to attend. She’s of Swiss descent, 
I believe. And then all those Huguenots we saw. at the 
opera the other night. That’s all a matter of history; 
and they were most of them French, I think.” 

“I daresay, ma; but hadn’t you better make up your 
mind where we’re going?” 

“Oh! to Beau-S^jour, Wilson,” Mrs. Croker says, in 
the loudest treble she can affect, and the ladies settle 
themselves back in the attitude of fashionable apathy 
cultivated by polite society in the nineteenth century. 

“ To here what gentleness these women have, 

If we could know it for our rudeness.” 

Thus Chaucer, who probably never heard two of 

these “goodly and angelic creatures” talking over their 
acquaintances. But Miss Jamesina and her mamma 
were not bad-hearted folk, as the world goes, though 
they fastened with keen relish upon the failings of the 
people they were about to see. 

The iron gates of Beau-Sejour were closed. Mrs. 
Croker’s supercilious eyebrows contract with vexation. 

“ Oh dear, dear ! What is to be done, Jamesina ? 
How annoying, to be sure. I cannot have you 

opening the gate in sight of the drawing-room window, 

and I’m sure I won’t trust Wilson off the box for 

an instant. We must never leave Peter at home again 
on any pretext whatever. What shall we do ? ” 

“ Oh, wait for some dirty little boy,” suggests 
Jamesina, in whose experience all little boys available 
for gate opening purposes are dirty. 

But the dirty little boy presents himself in the guise of 
a young man mounted on a chestnut of metallic lustre. 

George shows to marvellous advantage on horsehiack. 
He knows how to make the filly curvet at the gate just 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


46 

enough to prove that it is not every one who could 
open it on her back. He is conscious of being looked 
at, as he leans over her side with easy grace and swings 
open the heavy iron doors. As he backs the chestnut 
to let the carriage pass, and takes off his hat while 
the ladies drive through, there is an “ Allez houp-H ” 
flavour about the whole affair which gives it the appear- 
ance of a triumphal entry. . Even the long-enduring 
filly, obliged to render ignoble submission to the first 
“ Sunday-outer ” who comes’ to her master’s stables, feels 
it incumbent upon her to show off. She lays back her 
ears, and attempts to prance up the path sideways, with 
her nose towards the myrtles bordering the avenue. 

** Dash the brute ! ” says George ; “ what’s the matter 
with her all of a sudden ? ” 

He represses the exuberance of her spirits by a cut 
with his whip, and the chestnut, suddenly brought back 
to a recollection of its unhappy lot in life, returns to 
its usual spiritless trot, and arrives at the front door 
in the rear of the carriage. 

George’s appearance has deepened the Hebe-like’bloom 
in Miss Jamesina’s cheeks. Her mamma remembers that 
they have not committed themselves, and that if the 
young man should turn out to be one of the Delaunays’ 
“queer people” they are not obliged to recognise him 
unless he happens to be in their set. George, however, 
does not follow them into the drawing-room. He finds 
the usual standing-place for the suppressed filly, and takes 
her into favour again by bestowing upon her a conciliatory 
slap while he tells her to “ stand over.” 

Madame Delaunay’s austere face, softened by the 
lacy drapery of her afternoon toilette, rounded by the 
art which she would have defended in her coldly- 
considered views upon aesthetic questions, showed in 
almost scornful contrast by the side of Mrs.' Croker’s 
faded charms. There was almost as much dissimilarity 
between the girls. Jamesina’s limpid blue eyes, and 
cheeks which suggested that rose-coloured blood must 
run in her veins — her forehead, guiltless of knobs or 
projections, smoothly white under an edifice of fluffy 
flax, presented a type of the beauty that one involuntarily 
associates with flower-beds, and silken couches, and the 
costly sweets of life. Jamesina with her hair frouzy, 


TITTLE-TATTLE, 


47 


her skin sunburnt, her face heated, would have had 
not much more attraction than a doll that has been 
put before the fire after its owner has tried to comb 
its towy hair with a corkscrew. 

She was of the Louis XV., the Watteau, the Boucher, 
the porcelain period. 

Of Pauline one could hardly say that she belonged 
to any period. In olden times great colourists like 
Titian and Da Vinci loved to lay upon their canvas 
shades of warm brown colour which the sun might 
prick into life. This was the hue of Pauline’s hair, of 
her eyebrows, of her eyes. For the rest . she might 
have been bloodless, save for her scarlet lips. It was 
not essential in her case, as in Jamesina’s, to imagine a 
background for her person. Put her at the wash-tub, 
than which there is no more trying position for a 
woman, or send her in tatters to drive geese through 
a field like Grimm’s princess — you could not root out 
her birthright. When the human race was still young 
enough to be imaginative, before the superstition and 
the poetry had been reasoned out of it ; when instead 
of the flippant and vulgar spirits which the present age 
discovers in its tables and chairs, the fanciful children 
of Nature saw leaf- crowned nymphs in every tree that 
soliloquises in the forest, it would have been supposed 
that Autumna with a train of hamadryades had danced 
round her cradle at her birth. 

Like Tennyson’s heroine, gowned in pure white that 
fitted to the shape, she came on to the verandah to ask 
her persistent lover to come inside. Her grandmother, 
while sweeping past her into the drawing-room, had 
remarked, “That young man would put himself on the 
foot of Vami de la maison. Go, tell him to enter, my 
child, and be not long to do the commission.” 

George’s face, of all faces in the world the most 

prone to betray its owner’s secrets, became irradiated 

as Pauline advanced towards him. His eyes wandered 

from the rounded arms, the whiter for their trans- 
parent covering, to the smooth shoulders, the little 

round throat, and the mutinous mouth he loved so well. 
He was perplexed at his own state of mind. “ I’m 
in for it now, and no mistake,” he reflected. “ Hang 
me if I’m not as bad as a school-boy with an attack 


48 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


of calf-love ! Why, I grudgje the place that bit of black 
stuff takes up round her neck ! ” 

His expression showed so plainly the nature of his 
thoughts that Pauline was abashed. She delivered her 
message tersely. “ You’re to come into the drawing- 
room, please, Mr. Drafton, grandmamma says, at once.” 

Thereupon right about face, and a quick march 
towards the room in question. George walks behind 
her, and the long mirror opposite the drawing-room 
door reflects as he enters the expression of a man 
hopelessly in love. Miss Jamesina is quick to interpret 
such signs. Her eyes dart from George to Pauline 
in a space of time too short to be accounted time 
to our blundering perceptions, but the girl’s cold face 
betrays no emotion whatever. Madame Delaunay too 
has watched George as he follows Pauline into the 
room, and can hardly restrain herself sufficiently to 
introduce him to her visitors in due form. 

“ Missees Crauker, permit me to present to you Mr. 
Drafton — Mees Crauker, permit me. Mr. Drafton, put 
yourself, I pray you. Pauline, my child, Mees Crauker 
comes from telling me that a prince, the son of the 
Queen of England, will make shortly a visit to Sydney. 
Thus many young persons will be presented that they 
may profit of the fUes that one will give on this occasion. 
Do you desire likewise to be of their number?” 

“ I am sure Miss Vyner has too much loyalty 
not to say ‘ Yes,’ ” breaks in Mrs. Croker. “ Only 
think ! we shall be the first Australians he sees ! It’s 
a great joy, I am sure, but a great responsibility for 
us all, you know ! One of the gentlemen on the 
committee of reception was talking to me at a dinner 
at Government House the other night. ‘What would 
you suggest, Mrs. Croker ? ’ he said. ‘ Suggest ! ’ I said, 

‘ dear me ! I’d pave the streets with gold ' that he 
was to drive over ! ’ ” 

“ It would be a good way of making him think 
the people were prostrating theniselves before him, 
at least,” says Pauline. “ What a stooping and a scrab- 
bling there would be! I should instantly become a 
money-grubber in the most realistic sense possible.” 

Mrs. Croker discerns a flavour of laxity and want of 
respect in this prosaic view of her proposition. 


TITTLE-TATTLE. 


49 


“ Oh, my dear Miss Vyner, I’m sure nobody would 
want bribing to make them bow to the earth when 
his Royal Highness goes by. I shall never forget, I’m 
sure, what my feelings were like* on the solemn occasion 
when I first saw her Majesty. I believe after all I 
didn’t see more than the top of her bonnet, for by the 
time the carriage came close to me I was so overcome 
I fainted clean away ! ” 

“What a sell if it hadn’t been the Queen at all?” 
remarks George naively ; “ I suppose any woman in a 
poke bonnet would have done as well ! ” 

“You deceive yourself, Monsieur Shorge,” said Madame 
Delaunay grimly. “ The kings and the queens come 
into the world the sceptre in the hand. If in effect 
it does not find itself there actually, the image of it 
is always in the minds of the people. Thus it is evident 
that the monarchs are made otherwise than we. I too 
when I was young did see Charles Dix eat his dinner. 
Mon Dieu ! I had him in pity. He did eat so much 
and of such good meat, that I persuaded myself he 
would weep if one retired his plate. You must admit 
that it was a spectacle to inspire some reverence ! ” 

Mrs. Croker is dimly conscious that if she stays 
much longer Jamesina’s pretty little ears will be polluted 
by the necessity of their taking in some further proof 
of the quite shocking principles or lack of principles 
of this reckless Frenchwoman. She would pity Pauline, 
only she is quite sure (for Mrs. Croker is always sure 
of something or other) in her own mind that the girl 
is no better than her grandmother. How any one can 
admire her is a marvel to Mrs. Croker. A pale-faced, 
sulky-looking young woman, with a sort of style about 
her to be sure, carrying her head well, and with a fine 
head of hair, for those who liked reddish hair. 

All the time she carries on this train of thought in 
one half of her brain, the other half is busily engaged 
in conjecturing as to whether George is a young man of 
means or expectations. Mrs. Croker would have beeu 
a large subscriber to such a paper as jesters say is pub- 
lished in different watering-places in America, containd 
ing full information with respect to the family anw 
possessions of all strangers. What a blessing to know 
just how wide or how chilling a smile to bestow ! How 

D 


50 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


embarrassing to have no definite guide to enable one to 
regulate the amount of cordiality to infuse into one^s voice. 

While Miss Croker and Pauline inveigle Madame 
Delaunay into listening to the list of rumoured parties 
to be given when the Duke of Edinburgh comes, Mrs. 
Croker warily feels her way with George. 

“Very warm, Mr. Drafton, is it not?” 

This is said with the utmost blandness, while the 
eyebrows remain at their accustomed elevation. So far 
Mrs. Croker is on her guard. 

“Ton my word,” replies George, uncrossing his legs, 
“ I’ve felt it hotter in Melbourne. The people on our 
side talk a lot about the Sydney heat, but really I don’t 
think it’s a patch to what you get on the Murray.” 

“ Indeed,” says the lady, clutching at the opening 
presented by George’s answer. “ I’m sure it’s quite a 
consolation to hear that it can be hotter anywhere 
else, though I suppose in the bush you don’t know what 
to do with yourselves in the hot weather ? Do, you live 
in the bush, Mr. Drafton ? ” 

“ Rather ! ” says George decisively. “ I’ve not been 
much anywhere else since I first went up country for 
my uncle years ago.” 

Mrs. Croker jumps at the opportunity. George evi- 
dently means her to ask the question which follows. 

“For your uncle, you say, Mr. Drafton ? May I ask his 
name? Mr. Croker knows so many Melbourne people.” 

George tries to look imperturbable as he replies in the 
usual formula — “ Josiah Carp — that’s my uncle — of Cavil 
and Carp. I daresay you’ve heard of them before.” 

Heard of them ! Mrs. Croker is in raptures. For 
the first time she notices what a good-looking, gentle- 
manly young man is Mr. Drafton. Nothing in fact 
is more conducive to a gentlemanly bearing than the 
possession of a childless uncle whose sheep-farming 
operations are more extensive than Abraham s. 

One would say that an internal tuning operation had 
been performed on the organs of Mrs. Croker’s voice 
next time she speaks. 

“I’m enchanted, I’ni sure, Mr. Drafton, to have had 
the pleasure of meeting you. Jamesina, my love, we 
must persuade Madame Delaunay and Miss Vyner to 
join our little expedition on Thursday — and I hope. 


TITTLE-TATTLE. 


51 


Mr. Drafton, you will come too, and not stand upon 
ceremony. Mr. Croker shall call and ask you. Our 
young people are so fond of country excursions, you 
know — and then there’s Master Delaunay as well ! 
Now, may I reckon on seeing all your party, Madame 
Delaunay ? Pray don’t refuse me ! ” 

“ You are very amiable, Missees Crauker,” replied 
Madame Delaunay, with all the suavity she could 
muster. “ Pauline will make herself a pleasure of going 
to your fete champHre. For me, I go not out, and I 
cannot impose upon you my son, who is not of an age 
to contribute to the amusement of others.” 

“ Oh, we must have Chubby to take care of his 
niece,” said , Mrs. Croker, whereat there was a general 
laugh, and the visitors rose to go. 

While Pauline was ringing the bell to warn the vivacious 
Fifine that she must be in the convenient neighbour- 
hood of the hall door, Jamesina bent her turquoise- 
coloured eyes on George as he sprang up to open the 
drawing-room door, and shot therefrom so charming and 
artless a glance that the young man’s inward reflection of 
“ Devilish pretty girl ” became intensified into “ What a 
beautiful woman ! and not too stand-off either, take my tip 
for it 1 It’s like my luck to have no eyes for any one but 
Pauline, and then to be made miserable over it.” 

He was so full of his grievances, and so ready to 
resent them when the Crokers were gone, that he said 
good-bye almost sulkily, and went dejectedly away. 
Pauline’s parting from him in presence of her grand- 
mother was unaffectedly friendly in its manner. 

“This is Tuesday,” said George to himself, as he 
spurred the chestnut into its regulation trot. “ On 
Thursday I’ll see her at the picnic, and by the Lord 
Harry, if I don’t make her say ‘ Yes ’ then. I’ll show 
her I’m not to be fooled any longer. I don’t believe 
she’s as much heart as this filly I’m riding. I’ve never 
cared a jot for any one else since I saw her first, and 
I don’t suppose I ever will, but that’s nothing to her. 
Upon my honour, I sometimes feel like those people 
I’ve read about, who kill their sweethearts first and 
themselves afterwards. It’s one way of making them 
yours at any rate 1 ” 


CHAPTER VI. 


PAULINE ENCOUNTERS HER FATE, 

“ Was ever woman in this humour wooed, 

Was ever woman in this humour won ?” 

— Shakspere. 

Thursday morning, the morning of Mrs. Croker’s 
picnic, was obscured by an Australian mist — one of 
those dense, low-lying strata of vapour, forerunners of 
heat or rain. For the inmates of Beau-Sejour the 
clearing away of these mists was like the lifting up of 
the gauze curtains through which are dimly seen the 
garish glories of a transformation scene. First of all 
the polished masses of orange trees, dotted with white 
and gold, grew into distinctness in the foreground, as 
their impalpable covering rolled slowly away; beyond 
them the line of beach, shining like a band oi silver 
against the violet sea, made a middle distance of light 
and glitter, and yet farther away, lost in the delicious 
medley of tints produced by the struggle of the sun- 
beams with the mist, was a background made up of half- 
obscured idands and heights and spires that sparkled 
like topazes wherever they reflected the light. 

As Pauline watched this scene from the upper balcony 
in front of her bedroom window, she felt unreasonably 
elated. A metaphysically inclined heroine is necessarily 
a difficult subject to deal with. How chronicle the moods 
of a mind made happy by the effect of the rose-coloured 
smoke of an engine scurrying along under a sunset 
sky, or abandoned to the dreariest speculations at sight 
of two mongrels in each other’s grip ? 

Where all is conjecture and uncertainty, the impression 
of the moment must naturally colour the view of the 
universe at large. 


5 * 


PAULINE ENCOUNTERS HER FATE. 


53 


It was the sound of Chubby’s aggrieved tone of voice 
resounding through the house which brought Pauline 
down from her fanciful heights. She is known as Chubby’s 
champion, and even now would willingly play the part 
of the little boy who was brought up , with a prince, 
and beaten whenever his royal highness did not know 
his lessons. 

She hears Madame Delaunay say — 

-“It rests with you, Ernest ! You go not without know- 
ing it and without repeating it to me. It is the affair of a 
quarter of an hour, if you put into it some good-will.” 

Chubby’s look at Pauline as he carries off his geography 
book is a signal for help, and Pauline rushes inadvertently 
to the rescue. 

“But, grand’mere, don’t you think it’s a question of 
mood as well as of capacity ? I know quite well Chubby 
can learn half a page of Cornwall’s at any other time in 
a quarter of an hour, but just now he can hardly settle 
to it ; and if you will only let him have a whole holiday 
this once I think he will make up for it to-morrow.” 

“ If I could answer of the future of my child,” replies 
madame sadly, “ 1 would conduct him laughing across 
his infancy. It is in order to soften to him the suffer- 
ing which is so inevitable in his life that I would learn 
to him early to dominate himself It is your defect to 
you, Pauline, that you would make lie all the world on 
a bed of roses. It is but the fear of giving to him hurt 
which prevents you from saying the truth to Monsieur 
Drafton. Tell to him hardily that you love him not. He 
will be wounded, he will suffer of it, he will weep, perhaps ; 
but it will be more loyal, more probe on your part, than 
to leave him in a hope which you will never fulfil.” 

“Perhaps he won’t ask me again, grand’mere. I’m on 
the defensive as it is, and if he does I shall say I’m 
very sorry, but simply I can’t care for anybody, and I 
suppose he’ll make up his mind to like somebody else 
in time.” 

If Pauline, independently of the indefinable sentiment 
which she entertained for Sir Francis Segrave, had 
ever known what it meant to set her heart upon one 
being to the exclusion of all others, she would have 
spoken less lightly of George’s affection for her. Madame 
Delaunay had a clearer comprehension of his state of 


54 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


mind, but madame was prepared on her side to 
sacrifice every consideration to her one object of pre- 
venting Pauline from marrying for the present. She 
was filled with remorse and misgivings, remorse, because 
she had trusted, to her estimate of George’s character, 
and believed that he would never return at the end 
of two years — misgivings, because of his tenacity, and 
her inability to find any reasonable excuse for breaking 
her word to him that he should plead his own cause 
at the end of the probationary epoch. Her only safe- 
guard seemed to lie in Pauline’s evident indifference 
to her lover, and madame warily abstained from putting 
obstacles in the way of either, lest opposition should 
warm Pauline’s apathy into a belief that she too was 
in love. 

That, just now, no one ranked before Chubby in 
Pauline’s heart, would have been evident to any one 
who had seen her speak to the little boy, as he sat 
on the fender-stool in the drawing-room with^ the open 
lesson-book on his knees. 

“ See, darling ! Pm going to practise,” opening the 
grand piano as she spoke, “ and I shan’t leave off 
till you know your lesson. So we shall both be at 
work — and if you like Bergerette shall learn it too, 
and ril see which of you knows it best.” 

Bergerette was a shepherdess of Sbvres porcelain, 
who for many years had been on the point of yield- 
ing to the entreaties of a china shepherd on the other 
side of the clock called Berger. Berger’s fixed expres- 
sion of sentimental yearning was so appealing, that any 
but a shepherdess with a heart of adamant or of por- 
celain would have made him happy centuries ago. 
On Chubby’s behoof Pauline had animated every object 
in her grandmother’s drawing-room, full of quaint relics 
that madame looked upon as links in the chain* which 
bound her to bygone days. The bulky Chinese vases 
had been brought from China by her great-uncle, 
the Jesuit, in the days when the Flowery Land was 
still a dark and mysterious region. Under Pauline’s 
influence the quaint little figures, stepping on air, woke 
to life in the night-time; Chubby imagined them pick- 
ing the stiff roses within their reach, and pelting Berger 
and . Bergerette therewith. The three graces in alabaster, 


PAULINE ENCOUNTERS HER FATE. 


55 


holding aloft the gilt and white clock on the mantel- 
piece, rolled it about the room and tripped daintily 
over it like acrobats on a ball, and the carvings on the 
old oak cabinet half detached themselves like eels in 
a basket and twisted their necks about as they looked 
on. It was a room fitted to give birth to such dreams 
— sheeted with mirrors, yet dark in tone — the only 
modern articles of furniture the piano, and an ottoman 
ingeniously contrived for forcing visitors to sit with their 
backs towards each other. 

Twenty minutes elapse. 

“See if Bergerette knows it yet!” gasps Chubby, 
heated and triumphant, releasing his ears from the fore- 
fingers which have been plugging them, and ceasing 
the sing-song chant in which he has been intoning the 
exports and imports of Cape Town. 

Pauline looks over his shoulder just long enough 
to enable her to lay hold of the first four or five 
lines, and taking Bergerette gravely from its post by 
his side, holds the image up before her mouth and 
mumbles, “ Wool, the most important ; hides and skins, 
copper ore, ostrich feathers, ivory, wine. Population ” 

“Please, I don’t know any more!” 

“For shame, Bergerette! Very badly done, miss! 
Learn it again. Do you think you have raced her, 
Chubby ? ” 

For all reply Chubby thrusts the book into Pauline’s 
hands, and, nervously pulling at his blouse, rushes 
through his lesson at break-neck speed; then in the 
dread lest he should forget it scampers to the break- 
fast room and presents it to his mother, falling into the 
“ hands-behind-back ” attitude as naturally as a soldier 
presents arms at sight of his superior. Pauline mean- 
while stands breathlessly by, unconsciously forming in- 
articulate syllables in imitation of his. How happy 
they both are when Cornwall is put by in the con- 
genial vicinity of Ollendorff and Colenso, and there is 
nothing more formidable than breakfast to be got through 
before they set out together for the Crokers’. 

George in the me-^ntime is dressing at his hotel in 
all the purposeless haste of an irritated, half-desperate 
man. There has been a loo-party in one of the rooms 
of the Australian Club, and George has been gambling 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


S6 

recklessly and losing heavily. Three or four hours of 
disturbed sleep have not sufficed to whiten the rims 
round his eyes, or to smooth away the furrows which 
seem to have dug themselves into his forehead during 
the night. He is a gambler from choice and from 
habit, but he lacks the cool self-possession of the in- 
stinctive and professional gambler. It chafes him to 
lose, and his eyes and fingers betray his mortification. 
It had been nearly daylight when his party broke up. 
The first faint rays of morning were struggling into 
the gas-lit room. Outside a pure soft light was creep- 
ing up from the east. George had thrown open the 
window as his companions were leaving the room. A 
deep line of^ scarlet ran the round of the horizon 
edged with golden flakes, cradled in misty clouds of 
grey. Inside the lights in the burners seemed to pale 
with shame before the great glory of the father of all 
light. The half burnt cigars smouldered where they 
lay. Heaps of cards lay scattered in confusjon on the 
untidy table. There were splashes of brandy and 
water and cigar ashes all over it. George did not 
smoke, and the cigar fumes made him ill. Standing 
by the open window, and somehow connecting Pauline 
with the pure breeze without, he thought bitterly of 
his unfortunate Idtr “They say, ‘unlucky with cards, 
and lucky with a wife,’ ” he said to himself, “ but, by 
God, it seems I’m to have no show for either ! ” 

It did not restore his equanimity to find on return- 
ing to the hotel a letter on his bedroom mantelpiece 
addressed to him in Mr. Carp’s distorted handwriting. 
He turned the letter over and over in his hands, and 
looked curiously at the post-mark on the commercia 
envelope before opening it. The first part alluded only 
to station improvements. It was the last break which 
set George pondering uneasily on its import. 

“ I hear you have a love affair in hanfl,” wrote Mr. 
Carp. “ It’s no business of mine who you mary, but 
I’d have you remember, ‘When ppvverty knocks at 
the door, love flys out at the window.^ A word to 
the wise is suficent.” 

Mr. Carp’s orthography, it will be seen, was in 
harmony with his caligraphy. 

“ What the devil does he mean ? ” thinks George, 


PAULINE ENCOUNTERS HER FATE. 


57 


feeling as if some new stroke of fate were threatening 
him. “ I wish I had the old beast here at this very 
minute. Td make him speak plain English, or I’d 

punch his head for him if he didn’t. Does he suppose 
I’m going to slave for him all the best years of my 

life for nothing but his measly screw ? Or does the 

brute want to marry again ? He’d better try it on, 
that’s all. I’ll make it hot for him if he does.” 

Such a supposition was enough to put George into 
a cold perspiration. Though it must be admitted 
that his sentiments towards his uncle were hardly of 
a filial description, he had nevertheless learned to 
regard himself as Mr. Carp’s adopted son, and un- 
wittingly he had begun to reckon upon being some 
day master of a fortune which would make him a 
rich man for life. His friends were never backward 

in encouraging this idea, which, to tell the truth, did 
not require much fostering to become a permanent 
notion in George’s mind. 

“ I’d like to be in your shoes, old fellow ! ” they 
were wont to say jocularly. “ You’ll show them the 
way when the old man goes on the shelf,” to which 
graceful badinage George, half under protest, grinned 
assent,^ and then fell to calculating on the possible 
length ^of his uncle’s days. 

It so happened, then, that on this particular Thursday 
morning, while Pauline and Chubby were blithely walk- 
ing to the general meeting-place, George was riding 
moodily along, telling himself over and over again 
that he could bear this torture of suspense no longer. 
It is not to be wondered at that an anthropomorphic 
conception of a deity should have given rise to the 
idea that our prayers are sometimes granted more in 
wrath than in mercy. The ardently desired object is 
in our possession at last, and we are more miserable 
than we were before. 

If George had prayed for the fulfilment of his wish, 
his prayer would have been a fierce one, at the best. 
If he could have made Pauline marry him by force, 
he would have used force without scruple. ^ He did 
not ask iumself whether his companionship would be all- 
sufficient for her happiness, nor even concern himself 
much as to whether he could make her love him j only 


58 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


let him get her to himself, to have and to hold her! 
The rest would come in time. Wives were bound to 
love their husbands, and there was no reason why his 
wife should be an exception to the rule. 

It was almost a fresh grievance, on arriving at the 
Crokers’, to see Pauline looking so radiantly young and 
happy. She has inherited from her grandmother that parti- 
cular sort of French mouth whose corners, slightly turned 
down, have a half suggestion of mockery in their curves, 
and the sailor jacket she wears over her buff print gives 
her the air of the most charming rebel imaginable. 

George finds himself in the midst of all the preparatory 
bustle of starting. The beautiful terraces in front of 
the house are covered with excursionists, and grooms 
and coachmen are standing about at horses’ heads, as 
Mr. Drafton dismounts, and, with his left arm through 
the bridle of his chestnut, shakes hands with Mrs. 
Croker and bows to a pink and white nymph behind 
the marble balustrade whom he recognises as the art- 
less Jamesina. Broad-brimmed hats are wagging together 
in confidential intercourse respecting the fashions and 
the Prince’s visit, and two or three very young men are 
apparently admiring their nether extremities and ponder- 
ing on the possibility of wearing leggings oftener. 

Mrs. Croker, aided by Miss Gerofly (whose infant 
Moses in Berlin wool work has given her a just title 
to celebrity), is distributing her guests among the different 
vehicles with an observance of sets of which a Brahmin 
might have been proud. Miss Gerofly, having made up 
her mind that the age we assign ourselves is a matter 
dependent on our own choice, and supposing that, as 
the world is so often willing to take us at our own 
value, it will be just as ready to take us at our own 
age, has many years ago decided that she will never 
pass the limit of five-and-twenty ; by means of which 
ingenious process of reasoning she may be said to enjoy 
a season of perennial youth. 

“ And so that’s Mr. Drafton, my dear ? ” she says to 
Pauline, with a little giggle of anticipation. f‘How he 
did look at you, to be sure ! A little flirtation, eh ? Now 
I really don’t mean to flirt if I can help it, but men 
are such funny creatures, aren’t they. They always begin 
when you’re quite off your guard, don’t they ? ” 


PAULINE ENCOUNyERS HER FATE. 


59 


While Pauline is trying to evolve the meaning of 
this darkly ambiguous admissioh, the signal is given for 
a start. Buggies and waggonettes rattle in solemn order 
to the front ; an antiquated drag which, from its appear- 
ance, might have done duty in its day as a circus van 
or an itinerant artist’s abode, brings up the rear — a 
very patriarch of vehicles ; and last on the list, like a 
palpable “happy thought” tacked on to the caravan, 
appears a spring cart watched over by a toothless gar- 
dener, his infirmity counting for something in his promo- 
tion to the commissariat department. 

The separate individualities of the community shall 
remain in oblivion. Ordinary people of the upper middle 
class sort are very much like each other in all parts 
of the world. If, typically speaking, you could roll up 
and blend a few dozen persons in every township in 
Australia, then cut them up into separate fragments of 
humanity, male and female, and carry on this process 
simultaneously, you would be astonished to find how 
much each aggregate mass resembled the other before 
the work of subdividing was begun. 

Miss Gerofly, in the back seat of a buggy, is rendered 
happy for her little houf by finding that the whole of 
an unfledged middy has been apportioned to her. She 
is probably off* her guard, for the middy looks sufficiently 
scared to warrant the supposition that she has consented 
to lay aside her defensive weapons in his behalf. 

Pauline and Chubby are in the drag, with a pro- 
miscuous assortment of misses and naval men, over 
whom an elderly matron on the box is supposed to keep 
an Argus-like watch. They both will hold in lifelong 
remembrance the appearance of the cavalcade of riders 
and drivers speeding over the long undulating road 
that stretches away for miles out of Sydney,, out along 
the sea-coast, out into the lanes, where the small 
cottages look like a tangle of creepers, out until the 
red dust is exchanged for the cleanly sand, out still 
farther until it is brought to a sudden stop by a rocky 
declivity near the sea. 

George, trotting behind, still mutely recording his 
miseries and his desires, will remember all this too. 
Though they are taking no mental photograph of it, 
this scene will nevertheless be burnt into their brains. 


6o 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Every one knows that the primary object of a picnic 
is to eat. Moss-covered rocks and silvery spray, long 
cool shadows and waving, murmuring branches — all 
these are accessories. They form a poetical back- 
ground to cold turkey, lobster-salad, mayonnaise, straw- 
berries and cream, iced -champagne, and other delicacies 
of the kind which Mrs. Croker had provided. Like 
Todgers, she could do it when she chose, and she 
had chosen — as all who were at the picriic will testify. 
But even the unctuous comforts of pate de fois gras 
do not bring a spark of consolation to George. He is 
like a man in a baffling dream. Pauline is there, but 
she always seems to elude him. He turns to speak 
to her, and it is Jamesina who says in her plaintive 
little monotone — 

“Will you give me some claret-cup, Mr. Drafton? 
and do put a large lump of ice into it, please ! ” 

The day wears on. Even at a picnic one must leave 
off eating at last. Parties of twos and threes are w'ander- 
ing about, giving vent to little shrieks of discovery, the 
threes being for the most part unhappy units, who hang 
on like barnacles to the discomfiture of the twos to 
whom they have attached themselves. 

Miss Gerofly has reduced her middy to a limp 
condition — he wears a chronic smile expressive of 
great feebleness — and Mrs. Croker has found herself 
so wonderfully interested by Pauline that she cannot 
let the “ dear motherless girl ” leave her side. Mrs. 
Croker has at least enough perception to interpret 
the wistful look in the brown eyes turned seaward, 
and to divine that Pauline is longing to get away 
where the wide-spreading sea is heaving in a sort of 
lazy contentment under the warm sun, but Mrs. Crokei 
has a daughter to consider, and Jamesina has said 
pointedly at starting — 

“You know, ma, the day will be spoilt, as far as 
Tm concerned, if Pm expected to look after Pauline 
Vyner. Do keep her by you, please, and I’ll see to 
all the others.” 

And if, as Talleyrand said, “ Speech were given 
to us that we might hide our thoughts,” Miss Jamesina 
could not have covered up more artfully the injunction 
to her mother to keep Pauline in the background. 


PAULINE ENCOUNTERS HER FATE. 6i 

Mrs. Croker understood and reassured her daugiupr. 
“ I’m sure, my dear child, you will neglect nobody. 
Leave Miss Vyner to me! The poor motherless girl 
shall not feel herself neglected, you may rely upon it.” 

So Miss Croker has the field all to herself, and by the 
time she has begun to despair of adding George to the 
list of her hundred and one admirers it is time to make 
a move homewards. Then scouts are despatched in 
search of truant explorers, and nosebags are ruthlessly torn 
away from the fumbling heads of munching horses. 

Chubby has enjoyed his day after his own fashion. He 
has measured the circumference of the trees, and run 
backwards and forwards between Pauline and the sea- 
shore with cornelians and shells. And now he is stand- 
ing in his soiled blouse, intently watching Mrs. Croker’s 
coachman as he backs a powerful horse with profes- 
sional rapidity into a four-wheeled double-seated buggy. 

“I say, young feller,” says the coachman, spitting 
out a straw, and addressing Chubby with all the usual 
colonial freedom of speech, “ will you be so very obligin’ 
as to set in this ’ere seat and ’old on to them reins, 
while I go and see if all the victuals is packed ? ” — here 
he winks with great meaning. “ Clarence ’ull stand right 
enough, only don’t you let ’im work ’is ’ead about, 
there^s a good chap ! ” 

^Chubby is as pleased as a pascal lamb might be on 
finding itself in a prominent position. The coachman 
hoists him up into the high seat, puts the reins into his 
childish fingers, and leaves him smiling and triumphant. 

After a time Clarence begins to rub his ears against 
the shafts as if the flies were teasing him. Chubby thinks 
this is rather a funny operation, and the reins slip through 
his fat hands. Clarence rubs the side of his head 
harder still, and the buggy gives a little jerk sideways. 
Chubby would like it better if Clarence would stand 
still. “Wo, Clarence!” he says encouragingly; “be a 
good horse ! ” but Clarence is shorting and throwing back 
his head, and does not heed the appeal. Chubby can see 
that his blinkers are nearly off, and can catch a glimpse of 
the red-white of a startled and furious eye. Then it is 
that a nervous little voice is heard calling despairingly, 
“Oh, take me out! please lake me out! I don’t like it! 
Oh ! somebody come, please ! Pauline ! oh ! ” 


62 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Pauline, released for the first time that day from Mrs. 
Croker’s hampering attentions, finds herself in the centre 
of a little group playing at tinker and tailor with grass 
stalks. It is George who puts the stalk into her hands 
when it comes to her turn to take it. She begins with 
due gravity at the eleventh seed, “Tinker, tailor, 
soldier,” — and then her voice suddenly dies away, the 
blood flies from her lips, and she is racing forward in 
a dream like agony of terror before any one can imagine 
what has happened. She sees Chubby with dilated 
eyes and white face holding on to the splashboard of 
the buggy at the mercy of a furious horse, and she 
has an eternity of time in which to realise that her 
darling is in fearful peril, and that it is all true, and 
that the sort of horrible catastrophe she has sometimes 
dimly imagined in a nightmare has come upon her at 
last. She sees that the horse is mad with terror, and 
feels instinctively that in another second he will dash off 
with the buggy over the cliff in front of him. Her arms 
are thrown wildly out to stop him, but before she can 
sacrifice herself George is in front of her. 

“Stand back, Pauline!” he shouts, in hoarse tones 
of command, pushing her away with his hand as he 
rushes onwards to the buggy. He is just and only 
just in time. With one plunge forward, which sets the 
buggy rocking like a cradle, Clarence, with head between 
his knees, is off. Two vigorous, muscular hands seize 
his reins on either side, and then the unequal fight 
begins. A horse is stronger than a man, every one 
will admit, but few people know what a horse’s strength 
really is. As this one rears up in the air, he swings 
George off the ground, and throws Chubby back into 
the recesses of the buggy, where he stays rigidly cling- 
ing with all his might to the seat. ‘“Hold on, my boy, 
but don’t jump out ! ” said George, almost out of breath, 
as Clarence bestows a kick on the splashboard which 
splinters it into fragments. It all happens in so short 
a time that George has to fight his battle single-handed. 
Faint screams are heard issuing from the group of 
girls. The two or three young men who are with them 
hang back. “ He’ll be killed if he doesn’t look out,” 
they say, as the horse with another desperate bound 
almost throws George down at his feet, and drives 


PAULINE ENCOUNTERS HER FATE. 63 

one of the shafts into his side with a force that over- 
spreads his face with a sickly pallor. 

“Oh, let Chubby jump into my arms, for heaven’s 
sake, Mr. Drafton, I implore you ! — let Chubby jump, 
and then leave him ! ” 

This from Pauline frantically, who would give her 
soul to be in Chubby’s place, provided 'only he might 
be in hers. It is evident that George cannot hold out 
much longer. The young men make a move. The 
coachman is seen puffing up the incline; but George 
has conquered ! He relinquishes a manageable animal 
to the coachman, he sees Pauline burst into tears as 
Chubby jumps out safe and sound into her arms, and 
then a mist hides the buggy and the landscape from 
his eyes, and he hears a voice which seems miles away 
saying in muffled tones, “ He’s fainted, by Jove ! Help 
me to carry him under that tree ! ” 

When George next opens his eyes he sees portions 
of a blue sky overhead through a whole network of 
dark green leaves. He finds that his coat and waist- 
coat are off, the blood on his shirt is still wet, and as 
he raises himself on his hands a sudden spasm in the 
side almost takes away his senses again. A ship’s doctor 
is kneeling close to him with a tumbler of water and a 
wet handkerchief in his hand. 

“Feel better, old fellow? Soon get you on your legs 
again ! Don’t stir for a minute or two yet.” 

“ My side,” says George, with a little groan ; “ I’ve a 
beastly pain in my side.” 

“ Oh ! I know what’s the matter with your side. 
Two of your ribs are broken, that’s all; but we’ll soon 
put that little matter right. Well, if’ymi will sit up, 
lean your back against the tree. What ! Miss Vyner 
wants to speak to you; is that it? All right. Yes, 
I’ll go and see after your whip.” 

The little crowd that had gathered round George 
has distanced itself, and Pauline is free to speak to 
him alone. A thousand Mrs. Crokers could not keep 
her from his side now. She stands before him with 
trembling lips and moist eyes under the shade of the 
overhanging branches. She cannot control her voice 
just yet. It sounds thick and shaky even to her own 
hearing as she tries incoherently to tell him what she 


64 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


feels. “Are you much hurt, Mr. Drafton?” kneeling 
down on the grass before him as she speaks. “ What 
can I say ? What can I do ? I would give my life 
if it would be of any use- to you.” 

She is so much in earnest that she cannot force back 
the tears from her eyes, though she essays to rub 
them impatiently away. George speaks in gasps. A 
frenzied hope that here is his chance come at last, the 
chance he has been longing for, struggling after, dream- 
ing about so unceasingly, takes hold of his soul. He 
will never be master of the position again. He sits 
upright, and forgets that he has even a scratch. 

“It’s not your life, Pauline — you know that well — 
it’s not your life I want, darling — it’s your love. Oh, 
do give it me ! ” he pleads, and a fresh blood-stain spreads 
itself over his white shirt, a mute, most powerful aid 
to his entreaty. “To get your love I’d have every 
bone in my body broken, let alone a rib — and there’s 
God’s truth for you ! Say yes. Don’t refuse me, Pauline, 
my love ! You know whether I love you or not ! ” 

What can Pauline say in reply } The sacrifice of 
her being seems a trifle in comparison with the good 
which she has gained. Would the world ever have 
been the same again ? Would she have lived with 
the echo of Chubby’s last helpless cry for help ringing 
through all the years to come in her ears ? Would 
she have gone to bed, and dressed herself in the morn- 
ing, and eaten and drunk as usual, after Chubby had 
been brought back to his mother at night, his round 
limbs crooked and distorted, a bruised, bloody, shape- 
less piece of flesh, in the place of a warm, life-loving 
child, in such Enjoyment of his being that it made 
one feel healthy and happy to watch him running 
about in the sunshine? Would she have gone mad 
with the one haunting idea that it was all her own 
fault ; that it was she who had wearied her grandmother 
with her importunities that Chubby might come to 
the picnic, that it was she who had neglected to watch 
over the little boy while the horses were standing 
about? She would have hungered for the feel of 
Chubby’s arms round her neck until her death — and 
alter death? Poor Pauline ! poor any one who can- 

not help loving so brittle a thing as a human life ! 


PAULINE ENCOUNTERS HER FATE. 


65 


Her emotion has quite unnerved her. She replies 
almost hysterically, “ I said I would give you my life 
if you wanted it. I meant it. You shall have it. I 
should like to spend it all in proving my gratitude ! ” 

There is no word of love in her answer, but George 
is content. The flush of joy which chases away the 
sickly colour from his cheeks quite transforms his face 
for the instant. 

“ Darling, give me your hand. Would you kiss me 
if we were alone ? Bother all those people ! What 
are the fools staring at, I should like to know ? Never 
mind them. Thank God, I’m at peace at last. Don’t 
go yet. Why do you get up?” for Pauline sees Chubby 
moving from his seat a few yards off, and she cannot 
bear to have him away from her now. 

The ship’s doctor is a man of the world. He has been 
but of sight for a discreetly long time during the search 
for the whip, and now he returns to the tree and pro- 
duces it as if he had only just found it. 

“I dropped across it a minute ago,” he declares, in 
the calmest voice imaginable. “ Miss Vyner, I hope 
you’ve been telling Mr. Drafton to rest on his laurels 
for the present. He won’t be in cue for horsebreaking 
for some weeks to come ; and by-the-by, Drafton, you’d 
better let me ride your nag home. I’m a crack rider 
for a sailor ; never want my feet tied together, you know. 
You shall have my place 'in the sociable, and the ladies 
will make it soft for you among them.” 

He helps George on to his feet, and skilfully works 
him into his vest and coat. Pauline, Chubby, Miss 
Gerofly with her capture in tow, Mrs. Croker and George, 
are in the sociable. 

“ Well, I’m sure,” says Mrs. Croker, settling herself 
back with an air of angelic forbearance in her seat 
next to George, “ you’ve saved me from an attack of 
nerves, Mr. Drafton ; I can assure you, you have ! If 
Master Delaunay had gone over the cliff. Miss Vyner, 
I really believe I should have been laid on a bed of 
sickness. I suppose you couldn’t possibly have saved 
the buggy, Mr. Drafton, could you ? ” — complainingly 
— “ It’s quite spoilt, I’m sure. I don’t know what 
William can have been thinking of to trust it to a 
child!” 

E 


66 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Despite the pain and the weariness, the drive is all 
too short for George. His uncle, his losses, his broken 
ribs — all are forgotten. He is sitting by the side of his 
betrothed, and the tantalising tormenting delight he has 
felt in her presence is gone. The delight is intensified, 
but the torment has fled. She belongs to him now. 
He may look his fill. She has no right to protest. He 
meets her pleading, grateful eyes, and gives a restless 
little sigh as she turns them away. 

Out over the sea the clouds are turning from burnished 
copper colour to greeny gold, and the inky-hued ever- 
greens are throwing rosy shadows across the path. All 
this glory has faded out of the sky by the time Sydney 
is reached, and there is only a pale white light in the 
distance, throwing into distinctness all objects seen against 
it as sharply as if they were cut like cameos upon 
stone. The sociable comes to a h^t first at George’s 
hotel. 

“ Till to-morrow, then ! ” he says eagerly to Pauline, 
as he moves towards the door. He had been rather 
subdued than demonstrative before all these curious eyes^ 
but he cannot refrain from a long pressure of Pauline’s 
hand as he bids her good-bye, nor keep the lover-like 
expression from his eyes as he watches the sociable drive 
away. 

Broken ribs, you see, are nothing when a heart-sore 
has been healed. George exulted in his aches and pains 
because they reminded him how it was that he came to 
be so happy. 


CHAPTER VII. 

PA ULINB IS INFLEXIBLE. 


“ What will not woman, gentle woman, dare, 

When strong affection stirs her spirit up.” 

— SOUTHRY. 

It was Pauline’s habit to read to her grandmother at 
breakfast-time such scraps from the Sydney Morning 
Herald as Madame Delaunay might care to hear. In 
those days there was no direct telegraphic communication, 
and on the arrival of each mail madame’s interest in 
all the details of Continental news was keen. She was 
always a Frenchwoman at heart. 

Chubby’s knowledge of French dynasties was pro- 
found, as compared with his certainty respecting colonial 
governors ; and Pauline would have found it easier to 
affix a date regarding the arrangement of departments 
in France, than one which would have reference to 
the separation of New South Wales from Victoria. On 
the morning after the picnic the trio at Beau-Sejour 
was seated at the breakfast table as peaceably as if no 
domestic revolution had been brought about the day 
before. Madame, somehow, does not care about the 
items of home news this morning, and it is only 
wlien Chubby, who has a plan all his own for finding 
out whether the population of Sydney gains or loses 
during the year, reads aloud the name of Sir Francis 
Segrave in the list of passengers by the outgoing mail, 
that Pauline gives a little start. 

“It can make no difference to me now,” she reflects, 
“ whether he goes or stays ; and it is simply inexcusable 
to be glad that Jamesina should not have him. And 
yet I a7n glad nevertheless. I shall try to put it to 
myself on the score of my certainty that Jamesina 
would not have suited him, and that they would both 
have been miserable.” 

,^7 


68 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


“ Chubby,” she says aloud, “ will you mind watering 
my ferns for me this morning? only don’t substitute 
your carrot tops for them. I want to speak to grand’- 
mhre all alone.” 

While Chubby is in all the active enjoyment of 
drenching himself wholly, and the pots outside partially, 
Pauline takes up the thread of a discourse which was 
interrupted by the breakfast bell. Her hair falls in 
wet waves all over her back, and her eyes are still 
lustrous from the effect of her morning dip into the 
sea, but she is ill at ease in her manner, and gathers 
all the crumbs near her plate into a little round heap 
as she speaks. 

“ No, grand’mere ! I don’t regret it, and you won’t 
make me say that I do either. Everything is changed 
since yesterday morning. I am changed too, or else 
it would not have happened. I begin to think now 
that even if Chubby had not been at the picnic, and 
Mr. Drafton had not risked his life to save him, it 
would have come to the same thing in the end. Why 
need you mind so much?” 

She divides her heap of crumbs into a cross, and 
abstains from looking at her grandmother’s face. Madame 
might have aged by ten years during the night. Her 
eyes have the worried look of a hunted animal, well 
driven into a corner, uncertain which way to turn. 

“ To what good save the one of my children if it 
is absolutely necessary that I sacrifice the other? Is 
it that Monsieur Drafton will not listen to me? But 
I will force him to listen ! I will reclaim of his 
generosity, of his honour, that he gives yoq yet a litile 
time before you decide yourself.” 

She speaks vehemently, as in the days when she 
had tried to reason with Pauline’s mother so earnestly, 
so unavailingly. 

For any one who had studied the rounded contour 
of Pauline’s chin, it would have been a revelation to 
see the determination t’lat was gathering in her face. 
Soft round chins do not bespeak obstinacy. It is your 
square set jaw that denotes an inflexible nature. 

“ If you do anything of the sort, grand’mere, I will 
go straight to Mr. Drafton and tell him that I am 
ready to marry him when he chooses. What ! you 


PA ULINE IS INFLEXIBLE. 


6o 


would have him nearly killed to save your child, and 
then you would grudge him such a little reward as this. 
Besides, what does he want after all? To make me 
happy. He says so, and I believe him. If our tastes 
aren’t quite the same, I can adapt myself to his. It 
will be quite enough to think of him holding back that 
mad brute of the Crokers’, after his bones were broken, to 
make me care for him as long as I live !” 

“Ta-ta-ta!” rejoins her grandmother ; “ the emotion ot 
an instant fills not up a life. Would you then espouse all 
the sailors in the Birkenhead of which you would read to 
me the other day? You inspire me with a fear that you 
have not been contented, my child. Is it so ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” answers the girl slowly. “ Everything 
here is so smooth. My day is all mapped out for me 
from the morning. Chubby’s music lesson, visits to make 
with you, reading, practising, pleasures very often ! — no 
crosses excepting Chubby’s Ollendorff and having my 
dresses tried on by Miss Straitlace. I might have all the 
vices under the sun in embryo — they haven’t a chance of 
showing themselves here.” 

“Do you feel then the germs of them?” 

“Yes; even now, sometimes when I am idle, I find 
my head is full of vague desires, aspirations after I 
know not what. If I try to reduce them to something 
explicit, they cannot be explained. If I ask myself 
after all what I w'ant — to be able to travel, or write a 
book, or do something great, none of these seem to 
answer exactly to w^hat I mean. Then I think it must 
be a sort of wild wish to fathom the unknown, and I 
build castles in the air higher than the tower of Babel, 
to try and reach the clouds. At last I give it all uj), 
and think ■ that my nature is crooked, or that human 
nature is bad altogether, and when people are happy, 
they must try and interfere with their own happiness, 
because it is against the order of creation, or evolution, 
or whatever it may be, that they should ever be quite 
contented.” 

Madame Delaunay makes no comment. In the days 
when similar perplexities had been fermenting in her 
young brain, she had been wont to pour them all out 
to her husband the Deputy. Then the man of letters 
would listen to his little wife with a half-smile and 


70 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


the fullest possible comprehension of her every thought. 
He could not tell her, to be sure, why there is a 
“ worm in every bud,” but the music of his words 
never failed to have its effect upon her. He knew' 
how to find congenial work for her — the surest possible 
antidote to brain worry — and whatever she might think 
of existence in the mass, she ow’ed to him that exist- 
ence in her own case was so happy. All this had not 
enabled her to secure a peaceful career for her 
daughter ;• but Rosalie had been wayward from the 
cradle. Now that Rosalie was dead, and Henri Delaunay 
w'as dead, it was madame’s dream to keep her grand- 
daughter with her, or only to relinquish her to a man 
who might resemble her grandfather. She knew too 
well the requirements of Pauline’s nature to delude 
herself wdth the idea that the girl could ever be happy 
as George’s wife. She said nothing,^ but w^ent upstairs 
and opened an old hair trunk, another of her early 
relics, taking therefrom a tin box which she unlocked 
with trembling fingers. . Every one nearly has some 
little treasure of the sort. Locks of hair — faded like- 
nesses, withered flowers — they mock us by changing so 
little when we are changed so much. How valueless they 
are, and yet how we cling to them ! In each one is 
lodged an emotion which is born again in our hearts when 
we see them. 

Madame drew out of her box a daguerrotype in an 
embossed case and opened it, adjusted before her 
eyes a pair of old-fashioned spectacles, and attentively 
regarded the portrait. Save for the old-fashioned dress 
of twenty years back, drawn like a honeycomb in at 
the waist, and the long dark curls tied back into 
their place by a piece of ribbon round the- head, the 
picture might almost have been taken for Pauline 
herself. The head was a little thrown back, and the 
eyes looked arch defiance at the gazer — a charming, 
petulant face that seemed to breathe a determination 
to bend the world to its liking. “ Pauvre ange ! ” said 
madame under her breath, caressing the unheeding 
portrait with wistful eyes ; she seemed to have summoned 
new resolution when she shut the case and put her 
treasure by. She heard Pauline singing in the garden 
below, and met her near the verandah steps laden 


PA ULINE IS INFLEXIBLE. 


71 


with flowers — great bunches of late cloth -of- gold roses, 
long quivering sprays of feathery grass, sprigs of orange- 
blossom scenting the air around them, trailing twisted 
masses of scarlet passion-flower, all scattered in luxu- 
rious profusion in her upheld skirt. All the vases in 
the house were ranged on the verandah floor, and 
Pauline seats herself on the top step lo fill them with 
her flowers. She makes believe to be so absorbed in 
her occupation as hardly to heed her grandmother’s 
presence, and hums to herself, “ A Sainte Blaise.” 
As she sticks her last flexible stalk of silvery grass into 
a long vase of bronze carried on the back of a brazen 
Savoyard there is a noise of wheels near the front 
gate, and Pauline, jumping up, sees the top of a hansom. 
“And this means Mr. Drafton,” she thinks; “and I am 
really engaged to him ; and my hair is all down, and in a 
tangle and wet, and I am not fit to be seen ! ” 

So when George, driving up the pebbly path, looks 
out of his hansom in search of Pauline, he only sees 
a cataract of shiny hair and the back of a flying figure, 
but he sees Madame Delaunay erect in her seat, and 
in presence of the woman whose child he had saved 
he feels in the presence of an enemy. There is 
nothing inimical, however, in Madame Delaunay’s' manner 
of greeting him, as he moves laboriously and stiffly out 
of the hansom. George is naturally as elastic as a 
well-knit frame of some eight-and-twenty years will 
allow him to be. He vaults a fence while others are 
looking for a slip panel. At school his nickname was 
’Possum, because he might almost have competed with an 
oppossum in a race up a gum-tree. It would disarm a 
whole host of foes to see him seat himself gingerly, with the 
bearing of an old man of eighty, in the low chair madame 
pushes forward for him while he is dismissing the cabman 
to the front gate to wait for him. 

“ Thank you, madam,” says George, with his hand to 
his side. “ I’ve no business to be out of my bed this 
morning, / tell you ! Dr. Conelly — the fellow who looked 
after me yesterday, you know — he set my ribs for me last 
night, and he’d give me a jolly good talking to if he knew 
I was on the move so soon.” 

“ But why so much temerity, Monsieur Shorge ? There 
was but to write two words. I ignore not that I owe 


72 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


to you the life of my son. Yourself, you keep yet the 
memory of your mother. Therefore you may be able to 
conceive in part the nature of my debt towards you.” 

“Oh! that’s nothing to make a fuss about. It was 
a devilish lucky thing that I was by at the time — 
that’s all. Why, a horse’ll go fair mad with his blinkers 
off, sometimes, and you might drive him with a silk 
thread when they’re on. If Mr. Croker doesn’t sack his 
coachman for it, he ought to, in my opinion. I hope Miss — 
hem — hem — I hope your granddaughter — I hope Pauline 
is none the worse for her fright to-day.” 

George has thrown down the gauntlet, and madame 
will not hesitate to take it up. She looks fearfully 
round to see that the coast is clear, and prepares for 
a passage-at-arms, feeling that the conflict has come, 
determined to fight with all her strength for a reprieve. 
She is more dignified than declamatw-y, but when she 
feels intensely she cannot refrain from a little gesticu- 
latory action. 

“ Monsieur Shorge,” she says, with outstretched hands, 
as if in appeal to his pity, “ you see before you a mother 
so grateful on the one side, and so unhappy on the other, 
that you will compassionate her, is it not ? You will vex 
not yourself when she supplicates you to have patience 
with her for a little instant ? — say then, Monsieur Shorge 1 ” 

“ Say anything you like, madam ! ” answers George, 
tapping his foot on the verandah floor nervously. “ I’m 
bound to listen ; but I warn you beforehand if it’s any- 
thing to do with Pauline ^^^ — this time he brings out the 
name with emphasis — “she engaged herself to me of her 
own free will yesterday, and she’ll stick to her bargain, 
I can answer for it. I’ll give her no reason to regret it 
either, I can promise you that.” 

“ But I believe you. Monsieur Shorge ; you love my 
graucichild sincerely. Another in my place would cede 
her to you on the instant. I, who know her better, 
who know her more well even than she of herself knows 
herself, I say to you. Monsieur Shorge, she is not for 
you. You are young, you are honourable, it may be 
that you will be rich — you have done for me that which 
I can never repay — but she is not for you 1 If I can 
prevent her of marrying you, I will do it. She” 

“And about the two years’ time?” interrupts George 


PA ULINB IS INFLEXIBLE. 


73 


hotly; “are you going to back out of your own words? 
Didn’t I keep to the terms of the agreement ? Did I 
come near the place, or write a line, or send half a 
message even? If I haven’t the luck to please you, so 
much the worse for me. Thank goodness. Miss Pauline’s 
of another opinion ; and I think she’s about the only 
person to be consulted in the matter ! ” 

He is so discomfited that his eyes have quite a strained 
look as he puckers his forehead into its usual three 
horizontal lines. Madame had forgotten the two years 
for the moment. She has to consider anxiously before 
she again speaks. 

“ It is true — it is true ; but reflect a moment. Monsieur 
Shorge ! You come here to make your addresses to 
a young girl ignorant of the world. We will pass by 
that, however. Will you say that I did not give you 
free field, what I call champ lib re ^ to make to her your 
court? Still would I give it you. All that I ask, that 
I pray of you, it is that you would give her yet some 
time. Continue to see her. Do that she gives you 
her heart of her own free will, but, de grace, take it not 
by assault. Liberate her of her word. Would you 
then take what is accorded you in a moment of enthu- 
siasm — of pity?” 

The stabs in George’s side seem to have redoubled 
since Madame Delaunay began to speak to him. He 
hates this woman who is trying to turn his new-born 
joy into bitterness. He does not believe in her promises ; 
or is Pauline false and cruel, too, and is this a pre- 
arranged comedy between them ? Is Pauline hiding 
while her grandmother gives utterance to words that 
she is too cowardly to come forward and speak with 
her own lips? Such a thought is so unbearable that 
George starts up in search of her. 

“Where is Miss Vyner herself, madam? Have you 
locked her up on purpose that I shouldn’t see her? 
Curse this pain ; I believe I’ve broken the setting. I’ll 
take no word for it but her own. God knows I’ve cared 
for her long enough without being strung on any longer. 
Is it she who wants me to dilly-c^ally for another two years, 
or does she want to throw me over altogether ? ” 

“ No indeed, she doesn’t, Mr. Drafton ; and please 
what is the matter, and why are you stumbling about 


74 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


over my unfortunate azaleas,” says Pauline, coming 
on to the scene, with skih soft and fresh as an un- 
sunned peach. Have I arrived just in time to prevent 
you from killing grandma, or grandma you? Sit down 
again at once, and report upon your ribs ! ” 

Half laughingly, half tenderly, she pushes him down 
into the low chair and stands in her favourite attitude, her 
arms leaning on the back of her grandmother’s chair. 

Mon enfant ” 

“Excuse me, madam! Just listen, Pauline” 

“Oh, if you both speak at once,” she laughs, “what 
am I to say ? It is quite embarrassing enough to be 
appealed to as umpire as it is. But, Mr. Drafton, you 
interrupted grand’m^re I Your ribs are clamorous, I am 
afraid ! Yes, grand’mhre,” she adds, stroking Madame 
Delaunay’s head tenderly from her post behind her 
chair, “ what were you going to say ?. ” 

“ My child, it is difficult to speak in such a case. It 
goes of my life now. Here is what I would say to you. 
Monsieur Shorge comes this morning, it is evident, to 
affirm his title to your hand. He is right to do it. 
You did make him your promise, yesterday, the after- 
noon, when he came from saving the little Ernest 
before your eyes. But, Pauline, there is not so long 
since yesterday morning. It was then another history 
you were recounting ; was it not so ? Monsieur Shorge 
will be reasonable ! ” — there are tears in her voice as 
she turns her appealing eyes towards the young man 
opposite. “ Listen, my children : I desire your happiness 
— to you both, believe me ! but I have lived so much 
— I have so much suffered when it had to do with the 
mother of Pauline. Now I would say to you : Do 
not affiance yourself the one to the other. I will not 
tear you from him. Let him come when he wills 1 
But that he may give you some time ! It is all my 

prayer ! Some time — only ” 

She holds out a withered hand to clasp the young 
hand which is fondling her head. George’s eyes dart 
uneasy glances from beneath his creased forehead. 

“ Madam’s had her say, and I’ve heard it out, Pauline,” 
he breaks out vehemently. “ Now, for the Lord’s sake, 
let me have mine ! These half-and half measures are 
killing me; I can’t stand them any longer. I couldn’t 


PA ULINE IS INFLEXIBLE, 


75 


at least, excepting that I know you’ll be as good as 
your word. I don’t care w’hat name you call it — grati- 
tude, love, anything you like — you promised me yesterday 
you’d be my wife, and I know you wouldn’t tell me a lie ! ” 

The love in his eyes is almost a threatening love, and 
Pauline, with her hand in her grandmothers and her 
heart beating loudly, painfully, begins her hesitating 
reply. Just at this moment a little boy runs past the 
verandah, with the merry meaningless noise of children, 
who call out because they are happy and the world is 
good to be in on a summer’s morning. 

Madame Delaunay feels Pauline loosening the grasp 
of her hand, and makes a despairing clutch at it, as if 
by holding her bodily she could hold her spiritually too. 
The time may yet come when the girl, sick at heart, 
will cry out for the protecting shelter of the arms she 
would escape from now. Every word that she says 
falis on madame’s ears like a discordant note that carries 
pain to the brain, for Pauline can speak with a deter- 
mination which would have excited in the Middle Ages a 
strong desire on the part of her antagonists to lead her 
off to the stake. 

She stands erect by her grandmother’s chair, and the 
excitement of the moment spreads over her creamy skin 
that rare flush of colour which only comes when the 
blood runs quickly through her veins. 

“You know what I said to you this morning, grand’- 
mbre, when you spoke to me about Mr. Drafton at 
breakfast-time,” — her voice has a hard ring in it, foreign 
to its nature. “ You treat me as if I were still a child, 
and as if I could not possibly know my own mind. It 
is quite true that I made Mr. Drafton a promise yester- 
day, and that I mean to keep it. Do not move, 
please, Mr. Drafton. Grandma does not make all these 
objections as a bad compliment to you. Now that the 
matter is settled, she will not trouble you any more about 
it, you will see Will you, grand’mbre ? ” 

The coaxing intonation of the last three words is 
apparently without effect. Madame Delaunay listens like 
a criminal, with bowed head — then when the sentence 
is passed she rises with a stony expression, as of one 
stunned by a sudden blow, and moves without undue 
haste to the house. 


76 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


“Mon Dieu ! madame ! Madame se trouve mal?” 
says Fifine, volubly sympathetic, on meeting her mis- 
tress in the hall. 

“Non, non! Ce n’est rien. Laisse-moi, ma fille.” The 
reply exhausts her last effort at self-control, and she feels 
her way almost unconsciously to her room. It is not the 
first time that she has closed the door to do battle with 
such a despair as those only can feel who have nowhere to 
turn. 

Pauline’s impulse to run after her grandmother is checked 
by George. He installs himself on the couch against the 
wall of the house, and calls Pauline to his side. 

“ Come and sit by me,” he entreats. “ I feel quite 
ill with all this fuss.” Then as she slowly advances 
towards him, he puts out his arm and encircles her 
waist. She is not prepared for this sudden assumption 
of the privileges of an accepted lovef, and starts away 
in nervous discomfiture. 

“ Oh ! but you mustn’t, Mr. Drafton 1 If you’re the least 
bit demonstrative I shall go there,” pointing to a chair at 
the extreme end of the verandah ; “ and if you can’t hear 
me speak. I’ll get the old speaking-trumpet from upstairs, 
or Chubby shall carry slips of paper between us 1 ” 

“I mustn’t what?” says George, tightening his hold, 
and regarding her with fond admiration, unheeding of 
the threat she has uttered ; “ mustn’t do this, eh ? ” and 
before Pauline can protest, he has drawn her face towards 
his and kissed it passionately. 

She struggles from him with her face in a flame. 
She is so hot and so ashamed — she would like to cry. 

“ How can you, Mr. Drafton ? It’s cruel ; why do you 
treat me so? You’ll make me dislike you if you do 
that You know I’m not a bit used to you yet” 

A young girl who has been trembling in fhe first embrace 
of her affianced love should not speak as Pauline speaks. 
She moves from the couch, and seats herself on the low 
chair that Madame Delaunay has vacated. 

George lays back his head among the cushions of the 
couch and sighs. “ I’m an \mlucky fellow. I give all, and 
I get nothing. It’s always the way in this world 1 ” 

“ Then don’t give so much,” she answered shortly. 
“You forget! I hardly seem to know you at all well, 
and it frightens me, I don’t know why!” — pausing. 


PA ULINE IS INFLEXIBLE. 


77 


“ But I’ll talk to you all the morning, if you like — will 
that do ? Only promise one thing : that if I make any 
conditions you will keep to them. I’m sure you’ll grant 
me the first favour I ask of you ; won’t you ? ” 

As lier voice softens to a tone of sweet persuasion, 
George’s grievance takes wings. 

“ I’d do anything in this world you asked me ! You 
know I would ! ” 

“ Then will you listen to my conditions ? ” 

Of course I will ! Fire away ! But don’t be too 
jolly hard on me ! ” 

“Very well! Condition number one: That you will 
never betray in company or before an\body — no matter 
W’ho — Chubby even, if he were there, that you look 
upon me as being engaged to you.” 

“ All right ! I’ll ask for an introduction every time I 
see you. Now for number two.” 

“Well, number two must be that you never by any 
chance do that again — you know — well, kiss me, I 
mean” — she brings out the words with effort — “unless 
you have asked me first whether you may, and I have 
said yes.” 

George puts out his hand. 

“ Well, give me your hand upon it at least,” he says, 
“ people always shake hands on a bargain ; and since 
you’re so stand-off — see — I’ll only kiss your dear pretty 
fingers. I knew you’d pull them away ; and I say, Pauline 
— there’s one thing we must settle this morning. When 
shall we be fixed up ? ” 

“Fixed up where?” she asks, open-eyed. 

“Fixed up in matrimony. You see it’s rather a good 
job for me in more ways than one that I got my ribs 
smashed yesterday. It’ll give me time to get everything 
settled right off before I go back. I’ve told you what 
a queer fish I’ve got for an uncle. Well, if he knew 
I was engaged over here he’d be for putting a spoke 
in my wheel somehow, and there’d be the devil’s own 
row between us. But, once I’m married, all the uncles 
in the world couldn’t unmarry me ; so I mean to get 
the best of him that way.” 

George does not rightly interpret Pauline’s expression, 
as she listens to his speech with eyes bent on the ground. 
His love, which makes him mark so keenly every change 


78 IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 

of colour in her cheeks, every white tooth that is seen 
when she parts her red lips in a smile, every ring of 
hair lifted off her forehead by a passing breeze, does 
not enable him to understand the shades of feeling that 
Madame Delaunay would have followed as they arose. 

She is so grateful to Mr. Drafton. Her heart had 
already gone out to him when she confronted her grand- 
mother before him a few moments ago, and unwittingly, 
for his sake, inflicted a wound that could never quite 
be healed. She is going to love him as Chubby’s saviour 
deserves to be loved. Is it her own fault that the task 
does hot seem altogether so easy at the outset as she 
had meant it to be? Or is George himself a little to 
blame? Why will he persist in talking of his uncle as 
if it were necessary to outwit him ? Pauline does not 
want to be received upon sufferange into anybody’s 
family. Why will he give constant little checks to the 
sentiment she is so willing to lavish upon him? Why 
does it make her afraid instead of happy when he speaks 
of putting a term to their engagement ? She could almost 
echo her grandmother’s cry for time ; not for time in 
which to engage herself — she has plighted her troth 
already — but for time that she may learn to know him 

better, that she may use herself to his words, to his 

ways, that she may feel with him as she would fain feel 
with the man whom she is to call her husband. 

George, on his side, does not want time. He is not 
curious about the mind of his betrothed, nor desirous 
that it should reveal itself to him with all its hidden 
thoughts, its musings, its questionings. He would like 
to blot out the weeks which must yet drag on before 

he can call her his very own, can laugh at the notion 

of being hampered by restrictions in the matter of kissing 
her when he chooses, can perch her graceful figure on 
his showiest colt, can have her — intoxicating thought ! — 
sitting by his side during every meal at the lonely station- 
house at Rubria. The very foretaste of such a happiness 
as he has snatched at this morning fills him with feverish 
impatience. 

“And you know,” he continues, carrying on his train 
of thought aloud, “I may say I’ve been as good as two 
years engaged to you already, for I give you my sacred 
word of honour, Pauline^ that as far as loving any other 


PA ULINB IS INFLEXIBLE. 


79 


woman’s concerned, I’ve not been able to do it. I’ve 
tried hard enough, the Lord knows, sometimes, and that’s 
why it made me so mad when your grandmother tried 
to come between us just now. Only put it to yourself 
a minute ! If I found it such hard lines before, what 
would it be like now, do you think, eh?” 

Pauline accepts the implied compliment with indiffer- 
ence. The allusion to Mr. Carp has mortified her pride. 

“ If I have the good fortune to please you so much, Mr. 
Drafton, why should you be afraid of telling your uncle 
you are engaged ? ” she asks coldly. “ Or will Mr. Carp 
think you are committing a /?ihalliance by marrying me?” 

“ Good God ! ” ejaculates George, “ what do you 
mean ? Don’t I know that you’re out and out too good 
for me? I don’t love you any the less for that. As for 
Master Josiah Carp, he may take a fit, and I’ll tell him 
so to his face. I’ve got my screw, and the best part 
of my father’s fortune, and a part share in the station — 
the one I’m looking after, you know — and I’m pretty 
well independent of him. I know he’s got it into his 
head that I must marry some girl with money. I suppose 
he thinks I’ll take one of his scrubby stations off his 
hands if I do — and for all his wealth he’s as near as an 
old miser. But you’ll put a set on him, never fear ! 
He’ll be civil enough when he sees you ; and that's why 
I want the thing settled offhand before he can come 
in with any of his dashed advice. Listen here, Pauline. 
I can see how the land lies with Madame Delaunay, and 
what with her, and my uncle, and my fears about you, 
I shall be worried into my grave — for I’m an awful excite- 
able chap ; it’s my nature. Just you make up your mind 
this morning to a day for our wedding, and you shan’t 
have a fault to find with me afterwards. There’s nothing 
to delay for — nothing. I don’t think you’re one of the 
sort to want to torment a man just for the sake of show- 
ing your power. I couldn’t love you more than I do ; 
so tell me, my darling.” 

He bends forward in his eagerness, and draws him- 
self up with a sudden exclamation of pain. Pauline 
is reminded of his claims. Not tw^enty-four hours ago 
she had knelt by his side and protested with sobs 
that her life is at his disposal. Were all these vehement 
words a mere effervescent acknowledgment of his heroism, 


8o 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


and she an actress who shed false tears and breathed 
false oaths by way of recompense? She is frightened 
of herself, frightened of her own thoughts. Siie hurries 
to assent with an alacrity which overwhelms George 
with surprise and joy. 

“ I shall have to reconcile grand’mere to it a little, 
but that won’t take long ; and I think people always 
have things to get ready,” she replies. 

“ Let’s see,” says George, enchanted, “ we’re in March 
now — the twentieth, isn’t it ? Say next month, then, and 
you fix on the date ; but mind it’s before the twentieth. 
If you only knew what a happy fellow you’ve made 
me ! ” 

Pauline gives the smallest shiver imaginable. 

“ Have 1 ? I’m so glad j but I can’t bear to think 
that perhaps grand’m^re is unhappy. You mustn’t mind 
it if I leave you to find her.” ' 

“Then I’m off,” says George. “Dr. What’s-his- 
name’s coming at twelve o’clock. Won’t you come as 
far as the gate with me ; and won’t you give me one 
kiss yourself before I go? We’re quite alone. I won’t 
stir my hands, I promise you. Do, darling, in token 
that you’ve forgiven me ! ” 

She walks towards the couch obediently, and bending 
down, touches his forehead lightly with her lips. 

George is fain to* be content, sitting back stiffly in the 
carefully-driven hansom. 

“But there’s always something — always something,” he 
muses impatiently. “ I’ve got her, and I haven’t got her. 
What the devil is there in it? It’ll never be right until 
we’re man and wife ! ” 

Would it be right then? Was George’s remedy a safe 
one ? I would not advise another in his place to try the 
same experiment. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

A FORETASTE OF FUTURE RELATIONS. 

“ There lives more faith in honest doubt, 

Believe me, than in half the creeds.” 

—Tennyson. 

It has often been said and felt that the jumble of 
motives which move us to the performance of half our 
actions cannot be entirely analysed even by ourselves. 
Exalted self-love, another name for virtue, base self-love, 
another name for vice, *sway differently constituted minds 
in contrary directions under similar circumstances, but 
in each case there is always a grain of self-deception in 
the background. A consistent villain would be as great 
an anomaly as a consistent saint. 

Pauline, struggling against her grandmother’s antagonism 
to George, her own mixed sentiments, in which some- 
times a sense of admiring devotion, sometimes an irritating 
consciousness of a something that repelled her, alternated 
in her mind, believed surely that gratitude, self-abnega- 
tion, a sacred regard for her word, were the causes that 
determined her acceptance of him. She was the more 
inclined to resent Madame Delaunay’s treatment that 
she told herself frequently how much she required 
encouragement and approval instead of coldness and 
reserve. She did not tell herself at the same time 
that this very opposition raised its equivalent of resist- 
ance in her own nature; that George’s pertinacity, his 
presents, his promises to be and do all that she 
could desire in their married life, a certain vague idea 
of independence, a half pleasurable sense of self-imposed 
martyrdom — all had their share (however small a share 
it might be) in weighing down the balance of her 
conflicting feelings. Her declaration to George that she 
must reconcile her grandmother to the prospect of losing 
her during the following month was never fulfilled 

8i F 


82 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


quite to her own satisfaction. She would have liked 
to put her arms round madame’s neck and tell her, 
between kisses that were to soften the blow, how she 
had promised to go away the very next month and 
make some one else her first object and dearest com- 
panion in life. But who that saw madame’s stern, 
sad face and dark eyes, that looked hard because of 
the held-back tears she would not let fall, could have 
told her such news in such fashion ? Pauline stammered 
when she announced it, and her grandmother received 
the announcement with apparent stolidity. 

“ It is to you to judge,” she said ; “ I have done my 
possible.” And then she turned away, and Pauline, with her 
heart full to overflowing, found not another word to say. 

But perhaps of all the household her Uncle Chubby 
was the most unwilling to hear reason. 

“Why doesn’t he marry us all, theo?” he asks, after 
Pauline has vainly tried to work , upon his feelings by 
describing Mr. Drafton’s isolated condition — “ me and 
mother and Fifine? We’re all used to each other; and 
I don’t like him — he’s too new.” 

“I don’t know what you mean by being too new, 
Chubby, excepting that you don’t know him well. And 
what a silly boy you are : people can’t marry more than 
one wife at a time.” 

“Can’t they?” says Chubby reflectively. “In my 
book of Arabian Nights there’s a man sitting on cushions 
with twenty or thirty.” 

“ Oh, but that’s not in Australia ! No — I’ll tell you what 
to do. You must be so good to grand’mbre when I’m 
gone that she has never to hear you your Ollendorff 
twice, or to look round for her spectacles, or even to 
say ‘ Tais toi, Ernest ! ’ when she is reading her book ; 
and after a little time, in which you will have written 
me a long letter every day, and had one from me too, 
then you’ll come and stay with me. Shan’t we be 
happy together?” 

“ No.” 

“ No ! Why not ?” 

“ Because it won’t be at home.” 

“ Yes, it will. It’ll be my home, and that is the 
same as yours.” 

“ No ! ” insists Chubby ; “ this is your home. Oh, 


A FORETASTE OF FUTURE RELATIONS. 83 

please, Pauline, don’t marry Mr. Drafton for long ! I 
will do what you say, and I’ll water your big pots for 
you too every day ; only if you don’t come back soon 
I won’t care for anything one bit.” 

How overcome such a resistance to belief as Chubby’s ? 
Pauline cannot find it in her heart to rob him of his inno- 
cent delusion, so Chubby confides to Berger and Bergerette 
that Pauline has to be married for a little bit, because 
a man called Mr. Drafton has got rather dull all by 
himself, but when mother and Chubby are dull (which 
cannot fail to be on the morrow of Pauline’s departure) 
they will send the postman to her with a letter that 
minute; then of course she will come back to them, 
because Mr. Drafton is only a visitor, and not one of 
the family like they are. 

Under such adverse circumstances as these does George 
carry on his courtship. His ribs and his grievances 
alike heal themselves, and his chestnut takes the road 
to Beau-Sejour every day as mechanically as she eats 
her daily allowance of hay and chumps her regulation 
handful of oats. Sometimes, too, the chestnut has a 
companion, for it may be noted that George’s highest 
conceptions of artistic perfection are embodied in the 
conjunction of a pretty woman and a well-bred horse. 
In such matters, as he is wont to say of himself, he will 
“ back his judgment against any white man’s in Victoria.” 

“That’s a good bit of stuff that you’re on,” he tells 
Pauline, as she rides by his side one hot afternoon in 
the beginning of March ; “ but then you’d show off any 
horse, you would ! He’s half-brother to this mare I’m 
riding. They were both got by the same sire. He 
doesn’t make half a bad lady’s horse, does he? How 
do you like his trot ? ” 

“ Wonderfully well,” she replies ; “ only don’t make 
me talk till I’m quite used to the motion. I’m like 
those people who can’t speak when they’re playing the 
piano, unless they jerk out their words to the beat of 
the music. But isn’t riding a delight altogether?” she 
continues, rather inconsistently, as her horse swerves on 
to a piece of greensward by the side of the road and 
breaks into a hand-gallop over the elastic turf. 

These are the ecstatic moments of George’s life, these 
moments during which all dreary misgivings on the 


84 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


score of want of sympathy and of mutual under- 
standing are merged into his delightful certainty of 
being the superior, the instructor, the protector. Pauline, 
in her close-fitting dark-blue habit, mounted on a horse 
of George’s choosing, poising in her hand the little gold- 
headed whip he has given her, the far-away look in her 
eyes exchanged for an expression of happy confidence, 
is Pauline as he would always have her, if, like a defunct 
Red Indian, he could course by her side over infinite 
hunting-grounds through eternity. 

He tells her something of the sort, clumsily enough, 
the same day, as they are slowly walking their horses 
homeward. Pauline looks interested at once. 

“ I suppose nobody can help associating his idea of 
future happiness with whatever gratifies him most in 
the present,” she answers, with thoughtful brow. “One 
can no more imagine a new sort of happiness than a 
new colour, nor even imagine an eternity of any sort 
that it does not frighten one to think of. I wish you 
would tell me, Mr. Drafton, what you think really about 
a hereafter — I mean as regards yourself.” 

“Oh! I expect Old Nick’ll have a prog at me 
with his pitchfork one of these days — but I don’t know 
either. I don’t think they’ll be very rough on me up 
above, if it’s only on account of my mother. She 
7vas a Christian, I tell you, if ever there was one. But 
don’t you fret, Pauline ; I promise you I’ll be a re- 
formed character yet before I die. You’ll see me 
going to church with a prayer-book as big as your head ; 
and, I say, in the meantime you’ll do the church-going 
for me, and put in a bit of a prayer for me some- 
times. It can’t do any harm, and it might do a lot 
of good ; there’s no telling.” 

“ I do wish you would speak seriously just for once, 
Mr. Drafton. I want to know so much what you 
think. Some people won’t even live together who 
can’t make allowance for each other’s ideas about things 
that nobody can ])rove. Perhaps even you won’t have 
anything to say to me when you know all. Were you 
joking just now, or did you really mean what you 
said? Do you believe in your own heart that there’s 
an Old Nick, as you call him, with a pitchfork, and 
fire, and suffering souls to torment?” 


A FORETASTE OF FUTURE RELATIONS. 85 

“Why, everybody believes that much,” says George, 
rather uncomfortable at being catechised, and anxious 
not to go beyond his depth; “but, to tell you the 
truth, I never give it much of a thought. 1 expect I’ll 
get to heaven somehow myself, and I don’t see the use 
of worrying about it beforehand ! ” 

Pauline is hooking her whip into her horse’s mane, 
and tangling the long coarse hair in her embarrassment. 
She wishes she could make George comprehend her. 
At last she suddenly brings him to book with a question 
which would better have, befitted a Calvinist minister 
severely examining a youthful aspirant to holy ordecs, 
than a foolish, puzzled young woman who knows nothing 
but that she knows nothing. 

“Do you believe all the Bible?” 

“ My word ! ” says George, with cheerful alacrity. If 
that is what she has been driving at, he is pleased to 
be able to show her that he is thoroughly orthodox. 

“Every word?” she repeats impatiently. 

“ Rather ! ” answers George, with decisive triumph. 
“ Oh, never you fear ; I may have my faults — I don’t say 
I haven’t — but I’m not quite so bad as that. I’m not a 
heathen or a — what’s that you call it? — an infidel. No one 
can say that of me, thank the Lord ! ” he adds devoutly. 

“Then of course you wouldn’t marry an infidel?” 

“What do you mean?” he says, looking at her in 
astonishment. “ I’m not going to marry a black gin.” 

“ No ! ” she replies, still toying with the mane in 
perplexed fashion, and speaking as if the words refused 
to articulate themselves readily. “And I’m sorry that 
if I confess to you all my doubts and difficulties, for 
indeed I can’t help having them, you should put me 
on the level of a black gin. I see that your faith ” — is 
there the very faintest infusion of scorn in her voice as 
she emphasises this word ? — “ is too strong to be assail- 
able. Weaker people, like I am,” she adds hesita- 
tingly, “ would not be sustained as you seem to be by 
meditating on ‘Old Nick’ and his pitchfork. Now, have 
I told you plainly enough what my religious standard 
is; and don’t you think while there’s time youd better 
leave me?” 

“Leave you — good God — leave you for what?” 

“For being an infidel,” she says harshly, and the old 


86 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


defiant expression comes back and lends a strange giitter 
to her dark eyes. George literally jumps in his saddle. 

“You’re taking a rise out of me, I know,” he .says 
in a grieved voice. Then, as he sees her earnest face 
and set lips, he suddenly changes his tone. “ I don’t 
care what you are. If you were to tell me you were 
a murderess, do you think I could help loving you? 
You’ll always be a good girl to me, won’t you, my love? 
— that’s all I’ve got to think about. I know my mother 
used to put criminals and Turks and infidels, and all 
that crowd, into the same boat — but I daresay you’ll 

be all right before you die. Only look here, Pauline 
— don’t you go talking to anybody about religion. 
It’s not the thing, somehow ; and do, for the Lord’s 
sake, let the subject drop between us. I’m sure I 
don’t want to hear anything about the dashed matter 
as long as I live.” 

One would almost have called. George sulky during 
the remainder of the ride. If Pauline had confessed 
to him that she said her prayers every night in Chinese 
to the spirit of her great-uncle the Jesuit, he could 

hardly have felt more uncomfortable. Nothing could 
affect his love for her. This sentiment, indeed, had 
absorbed all the intensity of feeling of which George’s 
nature was capable, but it annoyed him that she should 
be “ peculiar.” He supposed there were excuses to 

be made for her on account of the strain of foreign 

blood in her veins. Her grandmother was a little 

cracked, that was certain. He must raise some good 
clergyman to talk to her one of these days. It was 
quite out of his line of business, for the long and 
short of it was, he didn’t know what on earth she 
was talking about half t'ne time. He didn’t see for 
his own part why people should quarrel with their 
religion any more than with their food. His mother 

was as good a woman as ever stepped, and she never 
missed taking him to church as soon as he could 

walk, However, Pauline had agreed to let the matter 
drop, and he supposed she’d go to church when they 
were in town just for the look of the thing. On the 
station it wouldn’t so much matter. He’d had a 

round game there himself of a Sunday with Teddy 
O’Connor and the police magistrate, but he took jolly 


A FORETASTE OF FUTURE RELATIONS. 87 

good care it shouldn’t get wind. Such is the nature 
of his reflections. 

Pauline rides in silence too, but there is more of 
hopeless sadness than of sulkiness in her face. She 
hardly heeds the streaks of colour around and above 
her, or is conscious that the balmy evening air is 
blowing against her forehead as the bold burning sun 
dips down behind the hills to take his turn at scorching 
the Ethiopians instead of the Australians. The rest 
that is overtaking all living creatures will not come, 
in ever so small a part, to her soul. She has never 
felt so estranged from George as at the present 
moment. She has never known till now how much 
of her being was engrossed in such thoughts as George 
would annihilate* or nullify simply because their utter- 
ance conveyed no meaning to his mind. And she 
feels intuitively that the lack of communion between 
them in this one respect will extend to every relation 
in life, will close her lips when she is moved by 
the fairness of such a scene as this, when her heart 
throbs a response to some scheme of reform, when 
a new or wonderful discovery lets in a particle of the 
light by which we fain would read the riddle of exis- 
tence, when the melody of rhythmical words sets bright 
images dancing to pleasant music in her brain. 

Henceforth she must lead a dual life : one for the 
man who has alone made life worth having — and even 
now her heart goes out in sudden tenderness as she 
thinks of Chubby — and another for herself. Of this 
latter life George will know nothing. “ And he would not 
care even if he did know,” she thinks to herself. “ I 
should have been far better pleased if he had been a 
rigid Puritan or a bigoted Catholic. He would have 
had to think at least, and there would have been some- 
thing to go upon — for after all, if people’s interests are 
the same, it would not so much matter if their opinions 
were difterent.” 

And this trite conclusion brings her home, where the 
first object that catches her eye is a tail of Fifine’s 
fluttering cap ribbon waving behind the creepers like a 
new sort of flower. 

“ C’est que madame attend mademoiselle pour le 
diner,” explains Fifine in shrill French, with George 


88 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


standing close by, his outstretched arms held in readiness 
to receive Pauline when she slips from the saddle. 

“ Et monsieur aussi, comme de juste,” responds 
Pauline, frowning. “ Of course you’ll stay to dinner ; 
won’t you, Mr. Drafton?” 

George hesitates. He is thinking of Madame Delaunay, 
but even her presence cannot interfere with his seeing 
Pauline. “ Yes ; he will stay, then,” and he delivers over 
the horses to a blear-eyed gardener, who though an old 
convict and a stutterer to boot, is regarded as somewhat 
of an authority by the inmates of Beau-Sejour on the 
strength of his being the only adult male attached to 
the establishment. 

George is on a familiar footing by this time with all 
the ways of the house. He follows unguided the tortuous 
passage leading to the spare-room, twists his sandy 
moustache into a semi-spiral curl, and goes straight to 
the dining-room, where Fifine is arranging little troughs 
of flowers round the table. He would like to make a 
friend of the waiting-maid. It is hard lines for him, he 
thinks, that he should have to ingratiate himself with 
every one about the place ; but it is madame’s fault, and 
George has long ago determined to have the best of it 
with her. 

Fifine, although her skin has acquired by this time the 
shiny consistency of a rather stale apple (she had been 
a very fresh-looking girl in her time), is too much of a 
Frenchwoman to miss the opportunity of bandying a 
few words with anything in trousers. Her bright,' beady 
eyes give a hasty sidelong glance at the mirror opposite, 
and seeing therein the reflection of a natty head under 
its provoking little cap of crimped muslin and cherry- 
coloured ribbon, they turn upon the intruder with an 
expression of smiling inquiry. 

“Vat does monsieur seek?” 

“Je shairshe les papier,” says George, with confidence. 
He carried off the French prize at school some fifteen 
years back, and feels that to be diffident about his pro- 
nunciation would be to cast a slur upon Mr. Racine de 
Tomkyns, who was a Frenchman in every respect save 
that lie had never been in France. 

“ En effet, le journal de ce matin doit se trouver ici. 
Si monsieur veut bien attendre un petit moment.” 


A FORETASTE OF FUTURE RELATIONS. 89 

Kifine whisks past him, and turns over the heap of 
papers on the side-table, talking all the time. 

“ Quel temps delicieux pour se promener k cheval ! 
et quel cavalier que monsieur ! et mademoiselle done ! 
Est-ce qu’elle est bien en Amazone. Allez ! ” 

Fifine’s raptures are what George would call rather 
mixed, as far as his comprehension of them goes. He 
gathers that she is willing to make herself agreeable, and 
when Fifine at last thinks it time to find the paper 
— she had seen it, as it happened, from the beginning — 
George has a newly-coined half sovereign, fresh from the 
Sydney mint, in the hand that is to receive the paper. 

“ Cah. C’est pore voo ! ” 

The little coin slides into her dainty apron pocket as 
naturally as if it were going home, and Fifine nods her 
head deprecatingly. 

“ Mon Dieu ! que monsieur est gentil. C’est moi qui 
le dis ! ” 

Fifine trips back to the table after he has gone. 

“ Est il amoureux fou, ce gar9on-lk.” 

She examines her money by the waning light that comes 
in through the open window, and turns back to the table 
with a smile. 

Both Madame Delaunay and Chubby are in the draw- 
ing-room as George enters it. If it were not for the 
presence of Pauline he would never come to Beau-Sejour 
at all. Madame’s courtly hospitality to her guest does 
not deceive him in the least. He knows that she has 
suspended hostilities because she has been worsted in 
the combat. 

What, in point of fact, remained for her to do? She 
had made an agreement with Mr. Drafton, and he had 
fulfilled his share of it to the letter. The right of 
deciding had been taken out of her hands when she had 
promised that Pauline herself should be the only arbitra- 
tor in the matter; but Pauline’s leaning was evidently 
not towards George, and her grandmother had felt com- 
paratively at ease about her. Then suddenly there had 
happened an event which, like a catastrophe in an orderly 
succession of natural occurrences, had upset all her calcu- 
lations — an event no human foresight could have averted. 
Pauline, delivered from the horror of a lifelong sorrow and 
remorse, willingly takes upon herself a liielong burden. 


90 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Madame lays aside all assumption of authority, and pleads 
by right only of her love and anxiety — pleads with Pauline, 
pleads with George. But they both combine against her. 
Ay ! there is the stab, there is the fierce wound that madam 
must now carry unhealed to her grave. 

Chubby in his innocence calls Mr. Drafton a visitor, 
and thinks that Pauline must soon leave him for her own 
people ; yet this is the interloper before whom Madame 
Delaunay has been humiliated to the point of praying 
uselessly to her granddaughter, her little girl, accustomed 
to fetch and carry for her without question. She cannot 
calm herself sufficiently to see the matter from another 
point of view, to remember that after all George is under 
the influence of a strong passion, and Pauline in a 
condition of exaltation, something like that which has 
induced people to die rather than renounce. 

She makes no more effort to bias either. Pauline is 
only sensible of the chilly atmosphere which seemed to 
surround her when, as a little child, she was under a 
cloud for some misdemeanour. She does not guess at 
the real state of madame’s feelings. Heaven only knows 
what tortures may assail a proud and reserved nature. 
The heart that is bleeding to death cannot open itself to 
the love that would staunch the wound. 

So all the pleasant preliminaries of a marriage are 
made bitter instead of sweet. 

Even when Pauline timidly refers to the subject of 
her trousseau, madame only replies, “You feel well 
that in the affairs of toilette I know not myself. Fifine 
is there, is it not?” 

“Yes; but about the expense, grand’mere?” persists 
Pauline. 

She hates having to think for herself in such a matter as 
this, as one migh^ hate being forced to declare a birthday 
in presence of a parsimonious god-father. 

“ All that is nothing,” says madame wearily ; “ one has 
put aside two hundred pounds. It is true you are not 
dowried. Monsieur Drafton is informed of it — there is 
a long time. When I die there will be yet something 
for you — but not much — not much.” 

There was no question of Pauline’s father in the 
affair, for the good reason that nobody knew where 
he was to be found. His last letter, dated from Malta, 


A FORETASTE OF FUTURE RELATIOMS. 


91 


hinted vaguely at his leaving the service — since which time 
he had ceased to write altogether. So this is how it 
comes about that of all the dwellers at BeaU-Sdjour, 
the only one whose happiness is unalloyed during the 
six weeks preceding the marriage is Fifine. Shopping 
— car^e blaiiche to give orders — dozens of shopmen 
skipping about at her bidding — consultations with Miss 
Straitlace — a sense of importance never dreamed of — 
all this has fallen to Fifine’s share. It is in council 
with her that Pauline makes out her lists; it is her 

taste that decides the colour of a bonnet or the shape 
of a jacket. Since the days when she danced at 
Neuilly on a Sunday afternoon she has never felt so 
happy as now wheH, seated by Pauline’s side in a 
hansom cab, she drives from shop to shop and talks 
“chiffons, encore des chiffons et toujours des chiffons.” 

There is something of an artistic pleasure, too, in 

dressing so beautiful a body as Pauline’s ; in fitting 
smooth velvet on to her round bust, in trying the 

effect of madame’s rich store of costly old lace on her 
polished white arms. Miss Straitlace is only allowed 
to grapple with the minor difficulties. It is Fifine who 
arranges the folds of the train, and contemptuously 
casting aside an old bodice of the Straitlace cut, fits 
Pauline after true French fashion, a fashion never old 
because it is always natural. It is almost touching 

during these times to see how Pauline looks round 
for her grandmother. She will run over the house 
from attic to kitchen in search of her, clad in a half- 
made dress, that she may appeal to her judgment. 
Madame, on her side, is bent upon eluding her. “ Do 
you find then, that it gives me so much pleasure to 
see you arrayed for the role of Iphigenie ? ” 

It has already befallen George to be consulted about 
his preference for a colour ; but upon that head Pauline 
has learnt to be wary. An innocent remark made to 
fill up a pause, such as, “ Did you notice how well black 
suits Jamesina? Those gold ornaments she wore at 
the concert last night were made out of Cape River 
gold,” is enough to send George to all the jewellers in Pitt 
Street in search of gold yellower and heavier than Jamesina’s. 
A partiality for blue results in the arrival of a whole moun- 
tain of forget-me-nots in a silver bouquet-holder. 


92 


IN HER EARLIESI' YOUTH. 


“I shall never risk saying I like anything again, 
unless it is the Koh-i-noor, or the Great Mogul,” she 
says to George, as she comes into the' drawing-room 
on this especial evening, wearing on her finger a tur- 
quoise ring unaccountably planted in a pretty little box 
on her dressing-table. 

“ Well ! I’m going to risk saying what I like, anyway,” 
says George in an undertone, while he is looking for 
a seat next to her. “ I like you to be burnt. Some 
women burn all about the nose, you know ; there’s Mrs. 
Paller, for instance. When we go kangarooing on the 
plains, do you think she’d come without it’s a cloudy 
day? Not a bit of it ! ” 

“Well, why should she?” replies Pauline, enlisting 
herself in the cause of the delicate-hued Mrs. Paller. 
“Why should she sacrifice her nose, and perhaps her 
reputation ? Isn’t it a sign that people drink too much 
when their noses are red ? ” 

“No, not always,” doubtfully feeling his own nose. 
“ Why, I’ve seen my nose regular peeling on a hot day 
on the plains ; I daresay it’s reddish now, but you 
mustn’t think anything of that ! Fair people mostly burn 
about the nose, you know.” 

This lover-like discussion on noses is broken by the 
sound of the dinner-bell. Dinner on the occasion of 
George’s visits is a thing to be got through with as 
little delay as possible. Madame Delaunay and George 
are types of such extremely opposite natures, that even 
the conventional usages of society which make a common 
meeting ground for all kinds of people fail to reconcile 
them to each other’s company. A refined woman of 
extreme views and strong dislikes, in manner belonging 
to an age that is dead, in thougin and opinion to an 
age that is yet to come — what point in common could 
she find with so palpable an incarnation of a modern 
go-ahead age as George ? He is as old as the civilisation 
of the country in which he is born. The growth of 
past ages, the mystery of the future, the advancement 
of the present, are alike indifferent to him. To make 
money, to get on indivi(iually, to win a race — yes — 
this last was the summit of his ambition until he knew 
Pauline. But knowing Pauline has not altered his 
nature. It has only developed a part of it hitherto 


A FORETASTE OF FUTURE RELATIONS. 


93 


unknown to himself. He loves her. Madame loves 
her too. Here then must be the bond which is to 
unite them. But this very bond tends rather to sepa- 
rate than to draw them together. Does George love 
in Pauline what madame loves ? Does he know her 
as madame knows her? Does he even see in her the 
qualities which have endeared her to madame — the ready 
comprehension, the power of thVowing herself into the 
interests of others, the loftiness of disposition which may 
make her guilty' of great faults, but never of petty ones ? 
or will these very parts of her character be ignored by 
George, or acknowledged only in so far as they may 
minister to his own limited spiritual requirements ? 

All this in the wake of a conversation on noses ! 
The connection is hardly evident — but at dinner the 
eaters hardly talk. It must be supposed that, as in the 
case of the parrot, they think the more. Hence the 
transcribing of their thoughts. Madame remembers with 
bitterness that the intuitive sympathy she. has been vaunt- 
ing in her grandchild never failed her until now were 
it not for this intruder who exacts so costly a reward 
for a courageous impulse. 

Pauline must long ago have seen that quite a new 
sorrow has succeeded to the ancient grief. She cannot 
tell how her grandmother looked when Rosalie died. 
She can only just remember creeping awestruck from the 
stony face that had turned to look at her after it had 
been bending over the sheet which concealed her grand- 
father’s body, but without any of these reminiscences she 
might guess that it is not Rosalie’s death or Henri 
Delaunay’s death which has brought the new wrinkles 
under madame’s eyes. 

The short Australian twilight has -given way to a calm 
starlit night by the time dinner is over. George looks 
uneasily at the verandah, then at Pauline, then at the 
verandah again, and forms his mouth into the shape of 
“ Come outside.” Madame sees the lovers defile through 
the glass doors with a renewed pang. “ It is cold, Ernest; 
shut the window, my child,” she says, shuddering. They 
need not flaunt their laboured love exchanges in her face. 

Pauline does not give George time to ignore his agree- 
ment with her. It is a night for throwing such con- 
ditions to the wind. The flowers are lavish of their 


94 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


sweetness to the air. The mingled scents would be 
almost cloying were it not for the light current of brine- 
laden breeze coming in from the sea. Pauline is stand- 
ing with her back to the verandah railings. George is 
lolling in an easy-chair at her feet. ' Whenever the 
summer lightning rifts the sky for an unseizable instant 
he can see her grave face in a frame of curly leaves 
above him. Why does she always seem the farthest 
away when she is there in the flesh close to him, when 
her breath and the passion-flower near her head seem 
to send out their sweetness together ? She has hardly 
given him a moment to feel this intoxicating influence 
before she has hurt him by her words. The darkness 
and the shield of leafy sprays, and the memory of the 
day’s conversation, all give her courage. 

“ I am going to ask you a favour, Mr. Drafton ! ” — it is 
wonderful how hard she finds it to call him George. “ Will 
you let me speak for a moment quite, hypothetically.” 

Instinctively George scratches the back of his head. 
For aught he knows this may imply the use of some 
incomprehensible language. 

“ Fire away,” he says at last ; “ but mind you, none of 
the infidel racket. And don’t stand there like a statue. 
I’ll listen to you if you’ll sit here.” 

“ No, I can only speak from here.” How chilly her 
voice sounds from among the leaves. “Supposing some- 
body — some imaginary person, of course — were to come 
to you to-morrow and say, ‘ Mr. Drafton, you love Pauline 
Vyner ever so much better than she deserves ; you are 
wasting your love on her — she is not worth it. She 
could be your truest friend, and give you her gratitude — 
well, I won’t say gratitude, then — but don’t please use 
bad language about k— and give you affection, and do 
anything in the world for you excepting make you a good 
wife.’ You don’t answer — it’s all hypothesis, you know. 
Well, if such a person were to come to you, what would 
you do ? ” 

“Kick him for being a meddling ass, and trying to 
blast a fellow’s happiness,” replies George bitterly; then 
in a tone of forced unconcern, “ but of course I wouldn’t 
believe him ! ” 

“But if you did --believe him?” persists the girl trem- 
blingly. 


A FORETASTE OF FUTURE RELATIONS. 95 

“ I should be inclined to kick him all the same ; but 
rd come to you as I do now,” getting up and taking her 
by either shoulder, “ and say, ‘ Pauline, you promised me ! ’ 
Don’t, for God’s sake, be for ever bringing in your tor- 
menting notions. They’re enough to drive a man mad. 
You’ll be quite a good enough wife — never fear ; and, 
Pauline, I can’t give you up — it’s no use — I can’t do it.” 

He takes her to him with vehemence. She does not 
willingly oppose him, but her passive resistance is more 
freezing than struggles and protestations on the part of 
another. 

“Sit down again, Mr. Drafton, and be quite quiet. 
I was only imagining a case. We won’t talk about it 
any more.” 

She half turns her back to him and looks up at 
the glittering lights overhead. It is a kind of night 
rare enough even in the clear atmosphere of the south, 
a night upon which to lose the sense instinctive in 
children and savages that there is an opaque dome 
above us well lined with lamps in our behoof. Upon 
such a night as this, when there are no clouds and the 
moon has not yet risen, a sudden conviction of infinite 
black space is forced upon us. The nearer and the 
farther worlds around take their right places before 
our bodily eyes, and we can almost feel ourselves 
giddily sweeping on in a sort of vast monotony ; a 
dread foreshadowing of eternity appals us, and we want 
to cling to something as helpless as ourselves, if it will 
only reassure us against our own thoughts, Pauline is 
almost glad to be awakened roughly by George’s injured 
voice. 

“What are you thinking of next, I’d like to know? 
Another of your plans for taking all the heart out of 
me, eh?” 

“ Oh no ! I wasn’t thinking of you at all.” Suddenly 
her voice softened. “Don’t be vexed, George. I dare- 
say it isn’t either of our faults. I’ll do all I can — 
there. Perhaps if we were in one of those other worlds 
there wouldn’t be a hitch. Which would you like if you 
could choose ? ” 

She holds back the curtain of leaves, and shows him 
through the opening the Southern Cross and its attend- 
ant pointers shining like miniature unblemished moons. 


96 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


“I don’t know,” says George, still aggrieved; “I 
know there’s a deal of rot talked about their being 
other worlds, and all that sort of thing. In my opinion 
the stars are stuck up there just like the sun and 
moon. I’m sure we want all the light we can get on 
a dark night ; and as to their being big, and all that 
sort of thing, there’s nothing to prove it!’,’ 

^‘I suppose you want a fresh proof that the world 
is round, do you?” says Pauline. 

“I don’t know, and I don’t much caiC;” he responds. 
“After all, what’s the use of it? Let them tell us 
something useful, and I’ll believe them fast enough. 
Let them name the winner of the next Melbourne Cup. 
That’s all I’ll trouble them for.” 

“ It’s getting cold,” says Pauline, quite irrelevantly. 
“Come in and sing ‘Tommy Dodd.’ I’ll play the 
accompaniment for you.” 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE PREPARATION. 

** Behaviour is a mirror in which every one shows his image.” 

—Goethe. 

The bearing of an engaged girl is always a favourite 
psychological study on the part of her girl friends. 
They criticise her among themselves as she enters the 
'room with quite a new interest in her person ; they 
have their own opinions concerning the number of 
dances it is permissible to sit out with the betrothed; 
the more daring bestow a meaning little smile on the 
pair sitting in the shadow on the staircase while the 
lancers or quadrilles are being decorously struggled 
through in the ballroom. 

It is a feeling of this kind which prompts Jamesina 
to walk over to Beau-Sejour on the morning when the 
rumour of Pauline’s engagement reaches her as a 
certain fact for the first time. That she may have 
some one to carry her gossamer veil in case it is hot, 
and her knitted cloud in case there is a little breeze, 
she makes a descent upon the schoolroom and pounces 
upon the most presentable of the various Crokers in 
all stages of the knickerbocker period there assembled. 
Nolly is waved aside because the concentric rings on 
his stockings merge into each other after a fashion 
which suggests that they have been dragged over the 
carpet, and Jemmy must not come because he is so 
bow-legged and kicks up the dust. 

“ It’s a choice of evils,” remarks Jamesina plaintively, 
scanning them, with the ivory knob of her parasol handle 
between her teeth, while Miss Rule, the sallow-hued gover- 
ness, stands in a deprecating attitude to listen to her. 

“ I think Willie’s the least objectionable of the lot ; 
but brothers are frightftil nuisances ; don’t you think so, 
Miss Rule?” 

^ Q 


98 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


Miss Rule smiles, and emits a weakly little sound 
from the throat signifying anything the hearer may choose 
to make of it — then draws down the corners of her mouth 
and looks immature vengeance at a child with an enor- 
mous head, that has put its left leg on the' table and is 
trying to draw the inkstand towards it with its foot. 

Willie is rather a white-faced, wistful little Ijoy. One 

is inclined to think him pretty until the incongruity 

of two large ears, which seem to have fetched away 
from his cropped, compressed head, is forced upon one 
by their prominence. Then the face becomes a per- 
plexing study, for the ear flaps interfere at every point 
of view. They look like handles from b^ihind, and 
like cabbage leaves in front. Willie must grow bushy 
whiskers, or become a man of mark, if he is ever to 
rise above his ears — if he does not want to suggest 

fleeting ideas of a garrulous, avaricious old king, the 
butt of ancient mythology. Miss Rule has been known 
to rap his knuckles, but neither she nor any of the 

preceding governesses have ever overcome an instinctive 
aversion to boxing his ears. Now, as he draws over 
his white head a cap with skirts such as are made for 
children in hot countries, his ears immediately adjust 
themselves to the skirts like the fulness of a crinoline 
to a starched dress. Protected by these bulgy projec- 
tions, he meekly follow^s his sister. Neither he nor any 
of his brothers, neither Mrs. Croker nor any of the 
household, would dream of opposing a mandate that 
had issued from the lips of Jamesina. 

“Now, don’t you whistle, and don’t clack, and don’t 
tread on my dress, and whatever you do, don’t snore ! ” 

This apparently incongruous direction as a preliminary 
to setting out for a morning walk is in reference 
to an oppression on the chest complained of by Willie, 
resulting in a somewhat laboured breathing. 

The brother and sister walk on in silence through 
the calm morning air, joyous with the twirls of hundreds 
of insects, until Jamesina is aware that the tassel of 
her cloud is trailing in the dust. Her pink cheeks flame 
into sudden scarlet wdth indignation. 

“You wicked boy! how dare you? My new cloud I 
You did it on purpose — you know you did 1 ” 

She snatches it from him angrily, and inspects the 


THE PREPARATtOl^. 


99 


dusty corner. Willie instinctively puts his hand to his 
head. Jamesina is the only person who has ever visited 
those large ears with her smart little hand. 

“You little fool! Do you think I’m going to hit you ? 
Here, roll it up, and carry it this way, do you see ! You’ve 
made me quite hot with your stupidity.” 

But this is the girl who ten minutes later greets Pauline 
in Madame Delaunay’s drawing-room with the most engaging 
little smile. 

“I shan’t forgive you, my dear, for not coming to 
tell me all about it long and long ago,” she says, after 
her china-blue eyes have taken a rapid survey of 
Pauline’s general appearance from the crown of her 
head to the shiny points of her morning shoes. “ In 
the first place, when is it to come off?” 

“ About the twentieth, I think,” replied Pauline, with 
very little animation of manner; then glancing at Willie, 
whose little white face seems all merged into red ear 
and large bright eye, “Your little brother looks tired, 
doesn’t he? Let me take him to Chubby and get him 
an orange before we talk any more.” 

When she comes back Jamesina has pulled off her 
gloves from her carefully-tended hands, and is evidently 
prepared for confidences. 

“I never heard it till this morning, do you know? 
Pa said Mr. Seefar told it to him, and of course I 
suppose he heard it from Mr. Drafton himself. We 
were all so glad. Ma told me to congratulate you. 
You are a lucky girl, my dear.” 

“I suppose I am,” says Pauline, a little wearily. 

“And,” pursues Jamesina, “I can’t help saying I do 
believe that picnic’s at the bottom of it. Do you know 
it’s the funniest thing altogether! Sir Francis Segrave 
was to have come! You remember Sir Francis Segrave, 
don’t you?” 

Remember him ! Pauline wishes Jamesina would not 
scan her so curiously as she asks the question. 

“Oh ! I daresay you do! Well, what do you think, my 
dear ! if Sir Francis had come, there couldn’t possibly have 
been any accident, because, do you see, that was the horse 
he was to have ridden, that horse that Chubby was holding, 
you know ; none of the others rub their blinkers off. Such 
a thing was never heard of ! ” 


ido 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


“And why didn’t he come?” 

Pauline could frame her question, she thinks, in the 
easiest way in the world, if Jamesina would not keep 
her eyes fixed upon her in that steadfast way. It is 
bad taste, to say the least of it, to stare. Her spirit of 
resistance comes to her aid, and she makes Jamesina 
lower her eyelids, as she returns her look unflinchingly. 

“Why didn’t he come, you say? Only fancy, my 
dear, the very morning of the picnic the mail came in. 
You know how late it was this time. It went away 
that very night, and Sir Francis had to go with it, 
because, poor fellow, he got some bad news or other 
about his mother or sister, or something of the sort,” — 
a pause, Jamesina drawls patterns on the drawing-room 
carpet with the point of her parasol, then with a 
suggestive intonation — “ but I daresay he’ll come out 
again ! ” 

“You mean that you know he will,” rejoins Pauline drily. 

Again she asks herself how she dare have any feeling 
in the matter now. Again the corners of her lips twitch 
as they frame the direct question, very quietly put, “ Are 
you engaged to Sir Francis Segrave, Jamesina?” 

“ Engaged, my dear ! Good gracious ! ” Jamesina 
laughs. “ What an idea ! Pm not in such a hurry to 
be married,” with a little stress on the /. “ I wouldn’t 
have anything to say to Sir Francis Segrave, I can 
assure you. It isn’t my fault. I’m sure,” plaintively, “it 
isn’t my fault if people will be gone upon me, is it?” 

This is accompanied with a sigh implying that she 
is really sorry for being the innocent cause of so much 
suffering. 

“Show me what you’ve got in that locket, my dear, 
and I’ll show you something too. His sister’s there 
too, you know, so it’s all right ! ” 

Jamesina giggles as she turns over the bunch of precious 
trifles pendent from her watch chain, and selects from 
among miniature golden gridirons, farm implements, and a 
sort of Lilliputian kitchen range, a flat album of dead 
gold in the shape of a small atlas. 

“ There, my dear ! ” she puts it- with an air of triumph 
into Pauline’s outstretched hand. “Now let’s have a 
look at your locket — do ! ” 

If in passing over her lover’s likeness to Jamesina 


THE PREPARATION. 


loi 


the likeness George had himself fastened round her 
neck, while he kissed the place on her white throat 
that it was to hide from his covetous eyes, Pauline 
could have passed over the real living lover too ! But 
hearts will not love to order, or else the amount of 
domestic discord in the world w^ould soon become a 
question of numbers only. A due balance of the sexes 
would set everything right, and now where there are 
jars and worries and fruitless arguments there would 
be households conducted after the model of the turtle- 
doves’ nest, and a cooing reciprocity of sentiment instead 
of a bickering antagonism. Pauline does not open the 
golden album that she has taken from Jamesina. She 
cannot see it, she says, in this light, and she moves 
across to the window, where she can look at it unob- 
served. She had knowm so little of the man. He had 
interested her, that was all. He had a pleasant voice ; 
it would have made the dullest party an assemblage 
of delights to have him come and talk to her now 

and then. She was sure he did not speak to Jamesina 

in quite the same way, nor about the same things. 
She fights afresh against such futile musings, and opens 
the album behind the shelter of the old flowered satin 

curtains. The face it discloses is less English than 

would have been expected from Pauline’s impressions 
of it. Judging it as a whole, it would incline more to 
the Mephistophelian than to the angelic type ; but this 
is an accident of shape, attributable perhaps to two 
high cheek-bones and a pointed chin — perhaps to a 
suggestion of hookiness in the nose, seen in conjunction 
with the triangular cut of the short black hair, almost 
forming a point on the forehead. > The colouring, too, 
must be a shade warm for Saxon blood. The eyes 
of the portrait convey little ; it can only be judged 
that the sitter was looking neither insanely happy 
nor preternaturally sombre to order. Even a close 
scrutiny does not betray the flavour of self-conscious- 
nfess so usually inevitable in the pose of the most 
unsophisticated victim of a professional photographer. 
Perhaps the eyes had early tutored themselves to look 
out upon this funny medley called the world without 
betraying their impressions of it. Pauline looks her 
hardest at them ; their impassibility is baffling. She 


102 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


remembers now, that if they had any power at all, 
it lay more in their faculty for following other peoples’ 
thoughts than for revealing those of their owner. She 
tries to make something of the mouth, but the lips 
are closed under the long military moustaches — then 

she turns suddenly to Jamesina and asks for her own 
locket again. George’s face has been advantageously 
set off by an admirably chosen tone of colouring. He 
is an excessively fair man, apt to turn red in the 

summer-time the artist has interpreted this complexion 
by a tinge of golden bronze. His eyebrows are so 

light as to be almost undistinguishable ; in the portrait 
they are defined by a narrow line of brown. His 

sandy wiry moustache and beard are here and there 
interspersed with skilful dark touches ; a nose insignifi- 
cant by nature has been coaxed into the suspicion of 
an arch by a little extra shade towards its tip. The 
nostrils, rather full in the real man, have been mercifully 
smoothed down in the likeness, and the crop of dead, 
light hair has developed lights and shades unknown 
in the original The light-blue eyes stare with such 
lifelike intentness at Pauline that she is almost startled 
whenever she opens her locket. 

Poor George had been wonderfully gratified by this 
portrait. 

“You’ve made a devilish good Job of it,” he said 
to the bland photographer — “ not a mere protrait taker, 
but an artist, sir, you’ll please to understand ” — “ a devilish 
good job, there’s no mistake about it.” 

Pauline had looked so long at the likeness when 
George, flushed with anticipation, had put it into her 
hands, that he became impatient for her verdict. 

“ Well ! does it suit you, eh ? Do you think you’ll 
be ashamed to whip it out when any of your young 
lady friends want to know what I’m like?” 

“It’s you, certainly,” she replies ; “it’s exactly like you; 
but it’s you idealised.” 

“ Oh, bother the idealised ! ” he says. “ Of course it’s 
painted up, but it can’t alter the features.” 

Then ensues the episode of his placing it round her 
neck. Pauline has worn it there ever since. The 
gold feels cold to her flesh as she replaces it now and 
restores the album to Jamesina. 


THE PREPARATION. 


“ I’m dying to have a look at your trousseau, my dear,” 
remarks Miss Croker, hooking her album into its place 
among the utensils. “You can’t think how ma envies 
you that French maid. We had one, you know, but 
she made such a lot of mischief, you can’t think. Ma 
declares she used to run after pa ! ” 

It is a sight to see Jamesina appraise the silk and 
fine linen upstairs. Those limpid orbs travel over the 
room at express speed. Mrs. Croker will be informed 
with mathematical exactitude how and in what order 
tucks succeed to insertion and insertion to tucks. In- 
tricacies of lace and flounces are made clear by her 
innate apprehension of the fitness of things with regard 
to trimmings. All the tim6 she is speaking to Pauline 
she is carrying away in her mind for immediate repro- 
duction a grey feather hat, a knotted black velvet sash, 
a whole silk train, buttons, fringes, and ribands included. 

When Miss Croker affirmed of Pauline Vyner that 
she could hardly be said to belong to any set at all, 
she spoke the strict and literal truth. Among her 
friends she counted none who could have laid claims 
to any intimacy with Jamesina. Girls much younger than 
herself, mature married people, both husband and wife — 
the old convict gardener — people who iiad become 
living realities to her through the books they had written 
— all these were her friends. In Jamesina’s presence 
she never feels at ease. That Willie (loth to go) 
should put his hand into hers, as she is seeing her 
visitors to the gate, seems natural enough. Children 
see something in Pauline that draws them to her; but 
that Jamesina should go through the form of giving her 
a company kiss is rather a marvel to her. Perhaps it is 
accounted for by the words which accompany the kiss. 

“ I say, my dear, did I tell you about the confirma- 
tion? I forget. It’s to come off the week after next, 
you know. I daresay you’re very busy just now, but 
ma would be so much obliged if you’d just send your 
French maid over with that pattern for a muslin body. 
You might let her hang my skirt too, you know. I’m 
not giving my dress out to be made, for if there’s one 
thing I’m more anxious about than another, it is to 
have it look unstudied. If you knew the trouble I’ve 
had with it already I ” 


104 IN HER BARL1BS7' YOUTH. 

Jamesina heaves another sigh, but this time it is a 
sincere one, because the pity is for herself. 

“ Of course ! ” Pauline says she will speak to her 
grandmother at once if Jamesina likes, but she can 
answer for Fifine being allowed to come whenever Mrs. 
Croker is in need of her. 

“ You see,” continues Jamesina, too much absorbed 
in a question of such fundamental importance to notice 
Mr. Drafton’s horse in the distance, “ the great point 
in these affairs is to be simply as well as elegantly 
dressed. Everything must be good, of course. I don’t 
believe there’s a shop ma and I haven’t hunted for 
real Valenciennes, with the most innocent little pattern 
you ever saw. And the muslin, my dear ! it’s that fine, 
fine sort baby’s caps are made of, don’t you know. 
Now whether to have it cut in a square or a V, that’s 
what I can’t make up my mind about.” 

She fixes her eyes anxiously on Pauline’s face. Her 
own view of the matter is too serious to enable her 
to perceive anything but polite interest in Pauline’s 
expression. 

“You want . to appear en ingenue^ do you? It is a 
role that should suit you capitally. Nature has helped 
you to fill it already.” 

Jamesina might ask for an explanation if it did not 
happen that George’s chestnut trots past her just at this 
moment. She returns George’s bow with one of her 
appealing glances, and turns away with her brother. 

“Jolly nice girl, that!” says George approvingly, as 
he walks by Pauline’s side to the house. “I expect 
you’re great chums.” 

“ No ; we’re not friends — at least, not real friends,” 
she explains. 

“You look devilish like it, that’s all I can say. What 
was she yarning about all that time, I’d like to know?” 

“ About a dress for her confirmation,” returns Pauline, 
with a half smile. 

“Jolly sensible girl, too; that’s what I’d like to see 
you doing. You should go in for being confirmed, and 
all that sort of thing. But never mind ; we’ve struck a 
bargain, haven’t we? I’m not the one to cry off.” 

“A bargain about our being married?” she cries 
with sudden eagerness. 


THE PREPARATION. 


105 

“ No ! you know I don’t mean that ; ” George looks at 
her suspiciously. “ About our never talking religion.” 

“Oh yes! I remember,” dejectedly. 

“And look here, Pauline! — hold hard while I tie up 
the mare — I’ve got something to show you. There’s a 
precious sort of uncle for a fellow to have,” fumbling 
m his pocket for a letter which he gives her to read ; 
“a rum kind of a fist, isn’t it?” 

Pauline looks curiously at the confused scrawl. 

“ It seems to be made of twists, I think, unless these 
isolated corkscrews mean ‘ I.’ Do you want me to read 
the letter aloud, George ? ” 

“Yes. I’d like to see if you can make head or tail 
of it. Skip all that first part. It’s only a piece of his 
fine advice about the station.” 

“There are some words here as puzzling as yours — 
your spoken words, I mean,” Pauline remarks, as she 
makes her way to a verandah chair with her finger on 
the sentence she is to begin upon. “Now for it. ‘I 

vote’ — no — ‘I note what you say about betting’ 

Oh, do you bet, then, Mr. Drafton?” 

“ Not to speak of,” replies George, reddening a 
little ; “ but you’re all out — take my word for it ; there’s 
nothing about betting in the letter. I’ll tell you what 
it is.” 

He comes and stands behind her chair. 

“ It’s ‘ getting,’ ” she cries, “ only the words run 
downhill — ‘ about your getting settled in life. I ’ — do 
please go on with it yourself. I think Hebrew must be 
easier ! ” 

“ Well then, here goes ! ” says George, leaning over 
her shoulder, content if only a stray hair of her head 
may touch his cheek. “ ‘ I note what you say about 
getting settled in life. I conclude it’s with a view to 
importing a New South Waler into Victoria. I could 
have give you your pick of a lot of Melbourne girls, 
as good a wife as a man need have. But you may 
take a horse to the water; you can’t make him drink. 
A pitcher will go often to the well, and get broke at the 
last. I know there’s several in the market in your 

district. I advise you to think over this. I’ Oh, 

the rest doesn’t matter,” says George, hastily crumpling up 
the letter. “ I just thought you’d like to see his style.” 


io6 IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 

“ Thank you ; it’s an original style, but I think Fve 
seen enough to judge of it for the present. Is that 
another letter you want me to read?” 

George is turning over an envelope addressed in a 
running commercial hand easy to decipher. 

“ Yes ! that’s from the fellow in charge while I’m 
away \ he’s a sort of half gentleman, you know.” 

Pauline can read it glibly. 

“Dear Mr. Drafton, — I have carried out all your 
instructions with reference to the place. The list of 
things you ordered from McEwan’s came up last week. 
The four-poster bed was too high for the bedroom ; we 
took up some of the planking and made a rest for it 
under the floor. The new carpet is down in the front 
room, and the blacksmith is at work rehinging the house 
and putting a stove into the kitchen fireplace. We are 
getting the garden dug up, and doing our best to make 
the place look trim for Mrs. Drafton. I fear she won’t 
see it to advantage. We want . rain badly. There isn’t 
a blade of grass on the plains ; the last mob of sheep we 
draughted were looking awfully poor — more fit for the 
boiling down pot than the Melbourne market; travelling 
mobs are passing through every day” 

“ There, that’s enough,” says George, taking the letter 
out of her hands. “You don’t care about fluky sheep! 
Just listen, to this, though. ‘Miss Nell is in splendid 
condition. She should make a first-rate lady’s hack. 
The Panic colt is looking game. McCabe says you 
mean to put him in training for the Victorian Derby,’ 
That’s to show you a bit about my horses,” George 
remarks, folding up the letter. 

“Are you very fond of them?” inquires Pauline, look- 
ing up at him. 

“ I should think I was. I’d be fretting to get back to 
them now if it wasn’t for you.” 

“ And they ? are they very fond of you ? ” 

“Of course they’re fond of me — but they’re not the 
same as dogs, you know. My dog — he goes fair mad 
when I come back to the station.” 

“ Then I may talk about the horses and the dogs as 
much as ever I like, mayn’t I ? ” she asks suddenly ; then 


THE PREPARATION. 


107 


half in an undertone, “ Shall I be something better than 
the dog, and a little dearer than the horse, I wonder?” 

George eschews poetry. He does not therefore follow 
the allusion, but he is overpowered that Pauline should 
put herself in the balance with his animals. 

“ You’ll always be all the world to me, I know that,” 
he replies, “and sometimes when you’re so cold to me, 
I think I know it to my cost.” 

“ Everybody’s world is not just what they would like to 
make it,” says Pauline softly. “ I hope truly, earnestly, 
it won’t be my fault if you have to complain of yours.’* 


CHAPTER X. 

THE CONSUMMATION. 

" Oh, now for ever, 

arewell the tranquil mind ! farewell content ! ’* 

— Shakspere. 

Time, which passes so quickly when we are happy, 
passes more quickly still when an event is impending 
that we cannot see our way to avert. That is why, 
the nearer the marriage day approached, the more did 
Madame Delaunay compare herself with the victim of a 
certain ghastly relation in Blackwood'' s Magazme^ called 
“ The Iron Shroud.” The circumstances that were to crush 
her by their force pressed harder every day. Every day 
a remaining hope, like a remaining window of the dia- 
bolical metal room, passed away. When the last window 
had moved out of sight, the prisoner in the tale might 
still have beaten his head against the wall; but what 
moral suicide will avail where the affections are con- 
cerned? Madame Delaunay could not have deadened 
her soul-smart though she had knocked her head, typi- 
cally speaking, against all the causes of her suffering. 
She saw George come and go with outward calm ; like 
a person signing her own death-warrant she wrote all con- 
ventional notes (Pauline had stipulated that the wedding 
should take place on any other than the officially-named 
twentieth, and that it should be as private as a pauper’s 
funeral) — and she gathered together Rosalie’s jewels, and 
packed them up in soft cotton, like an automaton going 
through a task for which it has been previously wound up. 

So the time went relentlessly on,, until the eve of the 
wedding-day, red with the fiery promise of a rose-coloured 
dawn, arrived at last. Pauline had been walking rest- 
lessly over the house, in the belief that she was making 
a collection of her personal treasures scattered through 
the rooms. In real truth she had been driving thought 

xo8 


THE CONSUMMATION. 


109 


away. “He is so fond of me ; I owe him my life !” She 
harps upon this theme with a feverish resolution. If 
nature cries, out, “Your grandmother is right; you are 
not at one with him,” she checks nature’s cry by the force 
of her determination. “ But I will be at one with him ! 
Grand’mere shall see that I am happy. Husbands and 
wives have a thousand interests in common. If I am a 
mother, shall I care whether Gteorge discusses theology or 
the solar system when we spend our evenings together?” 

Such a reflection, suggesting a recollection of Chubby’s 
scared face during those few moments of horror, stirs 
Pauline’s heart to its very depths. If George were 
there now what would he not think and feel at sight 
of her tender eyes? 

It is late before the packing is all accomplished. 
The trunks are to be sent to Melbourne by the 
morrow’s steamer. Mr. and Mrs. Drafton are to start 
on their travels the same day. They are to journey 
overland to Melbourne, and this will constitute the 
honeymoon trip. George has bought a new buggy. 
He himself will drive the pair of horses he has chosen. 
Pauline has studiously selected for a travelling dress 
something that is sombre, and that might suit a matron 
of sixty. 

“ A bride in such a funereal colour, and in a hat 
that has been retrimmed, is a thing unheard of, Fifine; 
I must only look out for a collar that is a little frayed, 
and a pair of gloves with a properly prominent hole, to 
be taken for an old married woman.” 

Fifine cannot refrain from a pitying shrug. “ Allons, 
mamzelle ! vous aviez joliment du temps. Pendant bien 
des annees encore vous aurez I’air d’une jeune fille.” 

Pauline cannot conceal from herself that she looks 
ridiculously young when she tries on the sedate robe 
before going to bed at night. Her chamber looks 
bare, divested of its little ornaments, and the dark 
travelling dress that she has thrown across a trunk 
seems to fill it with a gloomy presence. She turns up 
the gas, and stands with bare neck and arms before 
the glass under its fullest light. She sees a white 
girlish figure, soft with the pliability of youth, round- 
armed, white-shouldered, slender-throated; a girlish face, 
with two heavily fringed, bronzily-dark, startled eyes 


no 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


shining out of it ; a whole pile of half-coiled, half-falling 
hair, that seems to catch sparks from the flame above, 
and send them travelling over its obscure mass ; and 
two tightly-closed, undulating, deeply-red lips, set like 
those of a child that has made up its mind not to cry. 
To-morrow she will of her own free-will give all this 
up to George. To-morrow he will say in the usual 
formula, ‘‘ With my body I thee worship,” and the 
•matter of her beauty and power will become a relative 
more than an actual question. If Pauline were a soul- 
less Circassian, her judges would cry out at George’s 
luck, and say that he had run but a petty risk for so 
rich a prize. But besides the bodily appurtenances, all 
of which must pass into George’s keeping on the 
morrow,* there is somewhere — only, unfortunately, nobody 
has yet discovered where — a part of Pauline which is 
more Pauline herself than the eyes, the hair, the neck, 
the arms, and all the other articles of the inventory; 
and if this should remain out of George’s reach despite 
her own good-will, is he really so lucky, so much-to-be- 
envied a fellow after all? Yet if we are born blind, 
are we to be pitied because we do not know what it 
is to see a sore ? and if George does not perceive in 
the possession of the body that the mind may still escape 
him, is he not rather to be congratulated because of the 
bluntness that is to save him from suffering ? 

On the night before her marriage Pauline tries in 
vain to sleep. A criminal waiting for the sound of the 
bell that must summon him to his doom would not be 
more restless or fearful. Her harassing thoughts tire her 
very brain, and all the time she is tormented by the 
arrangement of the squares on her bed-curtains. Why 
will they sometimes form into lines that cross each 
other, sometimes into a set of diamond-shaped enve- 
lopes, sometimes into rings that tremble to their outer 
edge, like water- after a stone has been thrown into 
it? Her curtains have never obtruded themselves in 
such fashion before. And the whole time she is con- 
scious that her dark travelling dress is there, opposite 
to her, ready to jump on her bed like a nightmare and 
press upon her breast while she is sleeping. 

She is so bewildered, that she does not know whether 
she is stifling her reflections or they are stifling her. 


THE CONSUMMATION, 


III 


Whatever it is that makes' her lie there, awake and 
shivering on this most peaceful summer night, she can 
bear it no longer. She rises, and for the second time 
turns up the flickering gas until it burns brightly and 
steadily. Now she has escaped from the squares of 

her bed-curtains; the room is light — she will try to read. 
As she passes the glass, she can see the reflection or 
the dark dress slowly slipping to the ground. Witii. 
feverish haste she snatches up a dressing-gown of scarlet 
flannel, and throws it over her shoulders. Then bare- 
foot she leaves her room, and passes into the moon- 

light, streaming through the window of the corridor 
without. Both Madame Delaunay’s and Chubby’s rooms 
are close at hand, one at the head of the staircase, the 
other opposite her own. She can see as she passes 
the window how broad and white the avenue looks by 
moonlight. The boughs interlaced above it have cast 
their shadows on its bright expanse in the form of a 
network of delicate tracery. It is like a giant broidered 
scarf bedecking the dark garden. She has stood here 

before by night, dreaming the dreams carried on the 
rays of the moon to all who give themselves up for a 
short space to her weird spell. To the young and 
unknowing what hazy hopes, what a misty atmosphere 
of pleasing unreality, do these silvery messengers bring ! 
To the old, to those who know, the silver is tarnished 
before it can brighten their dull musings. “ Those wh( m 
the gods love die young ! ” Oh for a short-lived race 
of mortals — children — unthinking — revelling in life — dead 
before they have begun, like Adam, to perceive their 
own nakedness. 

Pauline creeps lightly to her grandmother’s door. 
The door is ajar ; all is very dark and very quiet within. 
Twice she puts a hesitating hand on the handle and 
twice turns away. 

A jilt is no doubt an ugly name, an ugly character. 
If Pauline had opened the door, and walked into 
Madame Delaunay’s bedroom now, at two o’clock in 
the morning, a few hours before her wedding, she 
might have been stigmatised by this ugly name for 
the rest of her natural life. But the second time she 
turns away there is no returning. Chubby’s door too 
is ajar, and Pauline does not hesitate to push it open 


II2 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


and walk softly into the room. By the light that streams 
in from the moonlit passage outside she can see his 
plump face and open mouth turned towards the door. 
Like most children of his age, Chubby sleeps profoundly 
and looks seraphically innocent when asleep. The most 
poignant form of self-torture that Pauline had ever known 
in her bygone self-torturing moods was embodied in 
the imagining of a hurt being done to Chubby while 
he was asleep. She kneels now by the side of his bed 
and puts her cheek next to his. Chubby holds her 
round the neck by one fat arm quite instinctively — he 
is fast asleep the whole time. Thus imprisoned, Pauline 
finds room to lie down by his side on the extreme edge 
of his narrow bed. When her arms are round him the 
turmoil of her mind gives way. Does she not owe it 
all to George that his soft regular breathing is even now 
caressing her cheek ? — So she falls peacefully asleep. 

“ But will you dance in church ? Why do you put on 
party clothes ? Will Mr. Drafton put on party clothes 
too ? Will he dance ? ” 

Chubby bombards his patient niece with a string 
of these inquiries during the awful five minutes inter- 
vening from the time of her being ready to the time of 
her starting for church. He has watched the prepara- 
tions in a sort of mystified bewilderment, walking round 
and round the dining-room table below. There is an 
alarming incongruity in the fruit, the flowers, the ghostly 
snow-covered 'cake, that cover it. Chubby admits of 
a breakfast, a dinner, and a tea. The intrusion of a 
repast that might have walked straight out of a con- 
fectioner’s shop window, a repast of any sort instead 
of his Ollendorff and slate, awes and discomposes him. 
Chubby toils up to his mother’s bedroom to have the 
disturbing element accounted for. Madame Delaunay 
is standing stiffly by her dressing-table in a dress that 
Chubby has never seen. Neither powder or cosmetic 
have been used to soften the sad austerity of her face. 
Her grey silk is so unfamiliar — the little boy creeps up 
to her, “ Maman, mettez done votre robe de chambre, 
s’il vous plait?” His mother takes his upturned rosy 
face between her two hands. “Tu es encore de cet 
age sans pftie, mon enfant,” she says half tenderly, half 
sadly, “et tu vois pourtant que je saigne au egeur.” 


THE CONSUMMATION, 


113 

Madame’s solemnity achieves Chubby’s discomfiture. A 
smile from his mother would have turned the mysterious 
meal below into a fairy feast. Now' it is a portentous 
combination of funeral baked meats. He rubs his 
head sympathetically against madame’s skirt, and trots 
off to Pauline’s room. The world may change, but 
Pauline cannot alter — the very sound of her name 
means a sense of security and contentment for Chubby. 
But he has still to learn that there is a new order to 
which the old must give place. At his time of life 
the present seems eternal, and one does not realise 
that things can ever be different. It is the worst of 
all his shocks to see Pauline, like the picture of Snow- 
White in his Grimm’s Fairy Tales, sitting before the 
glass, w'hile Fifine fastens orange flowers from the 
garden below in her hair. Chubby could not have 
explained that she is dressed in soft white poplin and 
Brussels lace — he only sees that she is white from 
head to foot, and that Fifine is choosing the prettiest 
sprays she can find from a bowl of orange-blossom 
and sticking them all about her. Two or three times 
before he has seen her in white, when she was going, 
as she told him, to dance, and she has danced round 
the room with him always. But Chubby feels that 
dancing at the present moment is not in harmony with 
the day. 

Fifine is the first to turn round upon him sharply. 
“ Eh bien ! que dis tu, petit drole ? ” she says, half 
indignantly. It is a trial to her that there should be 
nobody at hand to appreciate her work. Every addition 
she has made to Pauline’s toilette has increased this sense 
of injury. “ Belle affaire,” she thinks, to robe mademoiselle 
for her “ futur ” and the old clergyman. She would 
have liked to see a train of twelve bridesmaids, “conven- 
ablement mises,” to act half as a uniform set-off, half 
as foils to her young mistress. It aggravates her that 
Chubby should stare so stolidly. “Les enfants sont 
des' imbeciles; allez ! ” she remarks, as she flounces 
from the room, leaving Pauline with an injunction to 
sit on the edge of her chair and not to “chiffoner” her 
train. Then it is that Chubby begins his questions. 

“ No, darling, we won’t dance in church,” — Pauline 
speaks nervously and hurriedly — “ only Mr. Drafton’s 

H 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


114 

going to promise to be good to me and I to be good 
to him, don’t you see?” 

Chubby is perplexed ; he comes closer to Pauline. 
How Fifine would gesticulate if she could see him put 
his arm round the veil of Brussels lace and whisper in 
his niece’s ear — 

“But don’t promise for long, Pauline; how many to- 
morrows will you promise for?” 

“For as many as Mr. Drafton promises for. But where- 
ever I am, Chubby darling,” her voice grows tremulous 
with the effort to speak cheerfully, “I shall always come 
back to you when you have need of me. It is only 
because I love you so that I am going away at all. 
Yes truly, darling, don’t mind; it is you who are send- 
ing me away, but you will bring me back too. Not 
all the Mr. Draftons in the world,” she adds with 
vehemence, “ should keep me from you if you were ill 
or alone.” 

This is ill-advised policy on Pauline’s part. Chubby’s 
lips have been working from the beginning of the inter- 
view. He cannot control his sobs any longer, and cries 
like a terrified child who feels the world slipping from 
under him. 

Helplessness is never one of childhood’s grievances ; 
because it is unfelt, it is unknown. Only when the 
protector is gone comes the sense of impotence and 
desolation. 

Pauline is in such a hurry to console him that she 
becomes quite reckless with regard to facts. 

“ Don’t cry, dearie ; do you want to make me cry too ? 
I didn’t mean what I said. I’m only going a little way 
off. I wasn’t thinking of what I was saying when I 
said you were sending me away. See, Chubby, what’s 
the use of all your gilt-edged paper with the two fat 
sheep in the corner, unless to write me a letter with. 
When you’ve written me only a few, and told me whether 
Berger and Bergerette are growing up, and how often 
you’ve forgotten to water my ferns, then you’ll hear 
‘ Ding-a-ling-a-ling,’ at the bell, and you’ll run downstairs 
and jump off the four bottom steps into my arms, and 
I’ll be your horse all the way upstairs.” 

The sobs are abating now, but Chubby is only half 
convinced. He has climbed on to Pauline’s lap, with a 


THE CONSUMMATION. 


15 


glorious indifference to the lace and the orange-blossoms, 
and is holding her as if those childish hands could keep 
her from the path she has chosen to follow. 

Now there is a sound of wheels below. 

“ Mademoiselle ! madame, attend ! ” screams Fifine, run- 
ning upstairs. 

Pauline jumps up, and Chubby begins to cry again as 
he follows her to the door. 

Downstairs there is much commotion. At the sound 
of the carriage wheels the cook and housemaid have 
rushed simultaneously to the front door. 

To the cook, of a somewhat heated complexion, Pauline 
looks like a radiant vision as she descends the stairs. Cook 
clasps two hands, martyrs to suet and soda, as she exclaims 
to the housemaid — 

“Oh my! don’t she look just like one of them big 
beautiful images at chapel?” 

Jane assents, but timorously. She is new to the place, 
and a girl of discernment. She cannot forget the expres- 
sion erf Madame Delaunay’s face, walking swiftly with eyes 
bent on the ground towards the carriage. 

One last wail from Chubby reached Pauline’s ears as 
she drove away with her grandmother. She could not 
realise that this dream like day was an ordinary work-a- 
day Thursday — bright, sunshiny, busy for the rest of 
the world. At this time she has not on other mornings 
finished her practising or filled her vases with flowers, 
yet though she has slept so late, the morning has seemed 
so long ! Already her old life seems to have passed 
away, and she is standing on the threshold of her new 
one. She looks back — it is nearly all light. She peers 
forward — but she cannot see into the dark. 

Pauline dares not look into her grandmother’s mournful 
eyes. She puts a timid hand into madame’s lap, but there 
is no response. 

“It is too late,” said madame. “You have done the 
hurt, but you cannot heal it.” 

■“But you would have had me marry nobody,” expos- 
tulated Pauline, as the church door loomed in front of 
them. 

The driver is holding the carriage door open. Two 
or three passers-by are standing still to watch the bride 
walk into the empty church. 


ii6 IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 

“ Dare you tp say it ! ” answered madame, as they 
went side by side up the steps. “ I would have seen 
you marry yourself with another than he.” 

These are the last words that ring in Pauline Vyner’s 
ears as she walks up the aisle and confronts George 
Drafton. From this moment, all through the ceremony, 
she is perfectly collected. George is alternately pale 
and flushed, but Pauline, for the time being, has quite 
lost the sense of her own identity. She feels as if 
she were dressed in somebody else’s body, and were 
going through somebody else’s part. There is an 
embarrassing pause when the clergyman demands, “Who 
giveth this woman to be married to this man?” 

Pauline is so obviously giving herself away, that the 
necessity of answering for her had not occurred to her 
grandmother. But madame must drain her bitter cup 
in full. She must step forward calmly, with all her 
heart crying out against it, and apparently of her own 
accord relinquish her granddaughter to George. 

In a corner of the church sits Miss Gerofly. There 
are people who scent a marriage as vultures scent a 
battle. Not a detail escapes Miss Gerofly’s rabid eyes. 
“As white! as white, my dear!” she says afterwards to 
Jamesina, to whose eager ears she carries a recital of 
the spectacle forthwith, “ only a little tiny bit of colour, 
like the loveliest paint, in each cheek. And a train 
that long, caught back with real orange blossoms, 
lacked on to a fall of the most exquisite lace. As for 
Madame Delaunay, you’d have said she was at a 

funeral. No, her dress wasn’t much : quite plain, a 
dark grey silk, the last colour I’d choose for a wedding. 
Mr. Drafton ! oh yes ! Well, he looked flurried. I 
didn’t hear him say ‘I will,’ though I was keeping my 
hand to my ear to listen. Walking down the aisle he 
looked as pleased as a man who’s just, had a tooth 
out — you know • that look, don’t you ? Mrs. Drafton 

didn’t look like herself somehow. You’d have said she 

was walking in her sleep. They all got into the one 

carriage at the door — a big hired family _ coach, I 
should say — madame and Mrs. Drafton, and the clergy- 
man and Mr. Drafton. I didn’t like to show myself, 
you know. It was a whim, I’m told, of Mrs. Drafton’s 
to keep her wedding-day a secret. I didn’t see them 


THE CONSUMMATION. 


117 

get in, but I saw them drive off in the direction of 
Beau-S^jour.” 

While the wedding party is absent, Fifine has laid 
violent hands upon Chubby. When they return, the 
little boy is standing on the steps dressed in his suit 
of black velvet and steel buttons. Were it not for the 
coincidence that the man of God is also a man of the 
world, so uncomfortable a quartette would of a surety 

never have sat down to so dainty a meal. George has 

given orders that the buggy shall be driven to the door 

an hour after the wedding is over. At the breakfast 

table Madame Delaunay takes her usual seat at its 
head. Pauline sits next to her husband. Chubby and 
the clergyman are opposite to her. She is aware, 
always in her own character, that somebody has called 
her Mrs. Drafton. She starts, but does not answer to 
the name. She sees that Fifine is , putting a silver knife 
into, her hand, and that the snowy cake has been 
pushed towards her to cut. She hears the clergyman’s 
suave voice, addressed now to Madame Delaunay, now 
to George, with the sensation of there being cotton in 
her ears. She can hear, with a dim sense of being pleased 
at hearing it, that Chubby has asked for more cake. 

She wonders at it vaguely for an instant. The cake 
in her own mouth is like the veriest sawdust, hard to 
swallow. But this is a part of the unreality. It is 
all unreal — all a singular dream. When her grandmother 
rises, she rises too and follows her quite mechanically 
upstairs. The ubiquitous Fifme is there before her, and 
the sombre dress is in readiness on the bed. George 
and the clergyman are left below — Chubby too, comforted 
by cake for all too short a space. George, looking out 
of the window eager for the appearance of the buggy, 
feels that some one has mounted on the chair beside 
him, and turning round, sees Chubby’s face on a level 
with his own. The child has waited his opportunity. 
Th^ clergyman’s eyes are absorbed in critical contem- 
plation of a copper-hued landscape, said to be a Claude. 
His back is turned to the light, and Chubby thinks 
that his own penetrating child voice will only reach 
George’s ear. 

“ Pauline is my niece,” he begins — he is panting from 
the double effects of the cake and the climb. “ Hadn’t 


Ii8 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


you got a niece all of your own? Why do you want 
to take my one away ? ” 

His blue eyes are fixed upon George with the unabashed 
searching gaze of childhood as he asks the question. • 

“ But she’s my wife now, my little man ; Mrs. Drafton, 
that’s her name — your niece, Mrs. Drafton, do you hear ? 
There’s no more Pauline Vyner any longer, thank God ! ” 

What an irrepressible ring of jubilation runs through 
every tone of George’s voice. “She is mine; no one 
can take her from me ! ” — this has been the one pre- 
dominant, overwhelming, crazy thought since he stood 
by her side at the altar. There is no room for pity. 
It must be a wrench to madame to part with her, but 
all girls must get husbands some day, or if they don’t 
so much the worse for them. He is surprised to see 
the hatred in Chubby’s face, half amused at it. “You’re 
an old-fashioned littlef chap, if ever there was one. So 
you thought you were going to keep Pauline all to 
yourselves ; did you ? ” He can hardly forbear chuckling, 
his triumph is so great. 

“ Never mind, my man ; you be a good boy, and I’ll 
have you over to stop with Pauline one of these days. 
I’ll ])ut you on top of a horse too; there’s a chance for 
you, eh ? ” 

“ Pauline won’t stop whth you for always,” says the child 
almost vindictively — he has ignored the amicable over- 
tures in Mr. Drafton’s reply. “She says she’s got to 
go for a little bit. Then soon she’ll come back.” 

He is clambering down from the chair very fast, that 
George may not see that he is fighting with fresh tears. 
He fights away the hands that would detain him, and 
runs out of the room. Only Berger and Bergerette in 
the dim drawing-room look stonily on at his abandonment 
of childish despair. 

The buggy driving up to the door with a dash, 
George forgets his momentary vexation. Pauline has 
seen it coming too, and now for the first time since she 
entered the church does the sense of her own identity 
return to her — and she has but one moment left her, 
one moment to be filled with passionate appeals to her 
grandmother. 

“Take pity, grandmere ! I have done it for the best. 
Do smile only once ! Do let me remember your face 


THE CONSUMMATION. 


119 

smiling, grandmbre dear. The thought of having made 
you suffer will be always with me. I cannot leave you 
looking like that. Grandmere — in pity ! ” 

She breaks down, like Chubby, altogether. The con- 
vict gardener is labouring downstairs with the travelling 
trunk. George is heard cheerfully bustling about in the 
passage below. 

“ Now then ! time’s up I Is there anything more to 
put into the trap ? ” 

“ He’s ca-calling me,” sobs Pauline, “ and you wo-won’t 
smile!” She almost wails as she says the last word. 
Oh for ever so short a reprieve 1 She would have 
fallen at George’s feet if he would only have put off 
the departure until to-morrow. 

Madame has been tutored in a school of suffering. 
She has more self-control than her granddaughter. All 
the anger, the bitterness, have gone. The pity only, the 
heartsickness, remain. It would be of no use now, 
while holding the girl close to her heart, to say, “ You 
should have taken my counsel. You shopld have waited 
a little longer.” Madame refrains from such comfort. 
Desolate herself as she has never felt since her husband 
died, she soothes Pauline, though a very death-chill seems 
to have frozen her own power of feeling. 

Allons, ma petite! Some courage! , You will open 
to me your heart in your letters, is it not ? And retain 
well this, Pauline : Let all the world mock itself of you ; 
come back to me when you shall not be happy.” 

Nothing but the strength of madame’s love could have 
enabled her to make so supreme an effort at this moment 
of crowning suffering. She is almost disarmed by the 
strength of Pauline’s clinging embrace. She dare not 
speak again, and detaches Pauline’s arms from her neck. 
“ Follow me below, my child,” she bids her gently ; “ they 
wait for you ! Be quiet, my little one. I will smile to 
you when you depart ! ” 

Madame finds George waiting in eager expectation at 
the foot of the staircase. 

“She comes, Monsieur Shorge ; ” then hurriedly, “you 
will be good to her, is it not?” 

It is terrible — the cost of self renunciation that enables 
madame to make this appeal to her enemy and her victor. 

George answers from the bottom of his heart, “ Never 


120 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


you fear, madame ! I know I’m a devilish lucky fellow, 
but I’ll deserve her yet ! ” 

Then Pauline, in the sombre dress, descends weeping 
— vide the “Handbook on the Etiquette of Courtship 
and Marriage,” which ordains that the bride, bathed in 
tears, should throw herself into the arms of her mother, 
and bidding her home a fond adieu, should, &c., &c. 

I don’t know whether Pauline’s convulsive sobs, that 
she tried so hard to control, were in exact conformity with 
the rules laid down in the above-named classic. Her 
• eyes and nose had gone to daring lengths beyond the 
prescribed limits in which “ the fair bride bathed in tears ” 
should confine herself. She was not, indeed, sufficiently 
mindful of them to let down her veil, and kissed Fifine 
and shook hands with the other servants like a child 
who is ^oing to a boarding-school. But the worst ordeal 
was to come. As she reached the hall door. Chubby 
rushed out upon her and almost pulled her down as ' he 
clung round her neck. He encircled her waist with his 
legs, and twisted himself about her body with the tenacity 
of despair. 

“'hake me with you, Pauline — take me and mother! 
Mr, Drafton, please let us come — please, please don’t 
leave us behind ! Don’t, Pauline — don’t go ! ” 

His mournful cry of “Don’t go I don’t go!’^ sounds in 
Pauline’s ears even after she is seated in the buggy by her 
husband’s side, and he has pulled the apron over their 
knees. Childhood is wonderfully selfish compared with 
mature age. While Pauline gives one last look of 
agonised entreaty as George gathers up the reins, madame 
forces her suffering lips into the promised smile. It is 
rather a ghastly smile, but it is a smile, a token of peace 
and forgiveness. Then the buggy drives away, and Pauline 
knows that she has voluntarily left her home desolate. 
The thought of her grandmother returning to the empty 
room (Pauline has forgotten the existence of the clergy- 
man) with no one but Chubby to console her— Chubby, 
who is most likely crying his heart out already — such a 
thought is almost too much for her. This abandonment 
of grief is an embarrassment to George. It gives him a 
queer sensation of pain and discomfort to see Pauline 
cry. “ Cheer up, old woman ! ” he says heartily ; “ they’ll 
get round after a bit.’^ 


THE CONSUMMATION, 121 

“ They won’t,” sobs Pauline. “ Co-couldn’t we go back 
to see ? ” 

“ Bless my soul ! you’d have them in hysterics if you 
did. They were bad enough as it is. You make me 
feel quite wTetched. Pauline! my love, my darling ! for 
God’s sake don’t cry I You shall have the whole boiling 
to stop with you if you like.’’ 

Pauline’s sobs begin to abate. She is already con- 
cocting a letter in her head to be written from the first 
resting-place. 

“ Yes, my beautiful wife,” goes on George, “ it’s nobody’s 

business to console you now but me I say, isn’t 

this a devil to pull? We’ll soon leave the miles behind 
us at this rate.” 

“ I’ll try to be cheerful by-and-by, Mr. Drafton,” says 
Pauline, with piteous mouth. “ Will ygu grant me the first 
favour I ask ? Will you not want me to speak, or to 
notice anything on the road for half-an-hour ? Think, 
you’ve got a parcel by your side instead of me.” 

“ I’m not going to think any impossibilities,” says 
George. “If you like, though, I won’t look at you again 
till your eyes are dry ; will that do ? ” And in the silence 
that ensues, George has no resource left him but to 
whistle “ Tommy Dodd.” 


CHAPTER XL 

MRS. DRAFTON IN MELBOURNE, 


** Down, thou climbing sorrow ! 

Thy element’s below.” — S hakspere. 

JosiAH Carp’s smart residence at Toorah was known by 
the name of Wattle Villa, in reference probably to an 
enclosure of wattle trees close to the house. Once a 
year, in the very, early spring, their inky surface was 
dotted with gold, like a black firmament on a starry night. 
Josiah liked the colour of gold, there being always a 
flavour of bullion about it to his mind. He was indifferent 
to green — such virgin green, for instance, as ushers in a 
European spring, deepening under every curious sun- 
beam that rests upon it — but it pleased him yearly to 
see the fluffy yellow balls bedeck his favourite trees. 
One would have said in the morning that a shower of 
golden shot had bespangled them in the night-time. 
Late in the autumn, too, an adventurous wattle would 
sometimes put forth some semi-gilded sprays — but sparsely, 
as if under protest. There was all the difference to be 
seen between gold spent with the open-handed lavish- 
ness of youth and the dull caution of age. 

Next in favour to the wattle trees came the orangery, 
which Josiah had caused to be planted beneath his bei 
room windows, that he might look down upon his oranges 
and watch them turn from green to gold. So impatient 
was he of this process, that if Midas could have been 
hired out at a reasonable figure to assist it, he would 
have clamoured to Bacchus to send the Phrygian king 
forthwith to his orangery. 

Facing the north was an aviary, in which two golden 
pheasants trailed their glittering feathers in the dust 
and inspected each other’s jewelled breastplates in the 
sunlight. When the wattle blossoms had had their day, 
and the oranges were tardy in ripening, Josiah would 

122 


MRS. DRAFTON IN MELBOURNE. 


123 


plant himself in front of his aviary and make throaty 
noises to set his pheasants in movement. ‘ 

He had need of some such diversion in his lack of 
human sympathy. The pheasants and the oranges could 
not combine against him, but in his relations to the 
world of men and women he was always on the defen- 
sive. The Fiji men, it is said, regard a person who 
does them a kindness as a fool or an enemy, and in 
this Mr. Carp was like a Fiji man, that his suspicions 
found a wide range. 

“They won’t get the better of me,” was his constant 
idea. To find out what a man was “after,” and what 
a woman was “up to,” made up the sum total of such 
psychological speculations as he indulged in. Hence every 
new person was a new study in this particular direction. 

Pauline’s demeanour from the day of her arrival with 
her husband at Wattle Villa had been a fruitful source 
of mystification and sinister conjecture to Mr. Carp. 
Hitherto we have seen her only as she showed herself 
under the varying influence of all her contending feelings. 
Now the struggle was over. The day, at least, could 
bring no more repetition of the old discordant emotions ; 
the inclination at war with the resolve ; the heart-strings 
all pulling her one way — and her promise, her gratitude, 
George’s ardent vehemence, pulling her the other. There 
was no longer a necessity for forcing herself to see in 
the best light possible every minutest action of George 
— no possible occasion for hurrying through the love- 
making period with unseemly haste, lest she should take 
back her own given pledge and tread upon the heart 
that would have been trampled upon actually for her 
sake. All that she had now to do was to adapt herself 
to the new conditions as best she might. The breaking- 
in was hard, nevertheless. 

“A fine-bodied young thing; but law! whichever way 
you take it, quite a child,” said Mr. Carp’s housekeeper, 
in servant-hall conclave below stairs. 

“There’s somethink in it! I’ll find ’er out before I’ve 
done with ’er. I’ll find ’er out yet!” said Mr. Carp to 
himself in his smoking-room upstairs. 

I record the servants’ verdict first, because it was the 
most .charitable. 

With this object of finding her out in view, Josiah’s 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Ii4 

gleaming eyes followed the young wife about wkh a 
grudging, gathering admiration. If she raised her soft 
dark eyes from behind the panoply of silver on the 
breakfast table, she was sure to intercept a suspicious 
dart shooting straight out of the steel-coloured orbs 
opposite her. She rarely came out of her room without 
hearing a shuffling on the marble outside and seeing a 
shiny bald head precipitately ducking through a doorway. 
Her place of refuge was a small railed-in projection, which, 
opening from her bedroom window, and looking on the 
distant bay, reminded her ever so slightly of the balcony 
at Beau-Sejour. When George was in town, hovering 
round the precincts of Kirk’s Bazaar, Pauline would lock 
her door, a whim never dreamed of before, and take 
her book and a chair to this balcony to await her hus- 
band’s return. 

Sitting there, as was her wont, one bright afternoon, 
her book, of which, it is to be feared, she read very 
little, slipped to the ground, and leaning her two arms 
on the balustrade in front of her, she rested her head 
upon them and fell into a fit of musing. Her face 
was hidden, but the sun made haste to fraternise with 
such locks in her brown head as responded to his 
greeting, and to warm the little bit of white neck which 
he could get at below the nape. She was going to 
reason with herself now, telling herself that her day- 
dreaming time was over. It must have been a curious 
process of reasoning that made a large tear fall with 
quite a splatter just in front of her, startling her into 
a sudden sense of shame. She had meant to review 
her position courageously and honestly, to trace out a 
line of conduct and force herself to adhere to it, to 
grasp the realities of her new life and see how best to 
face them, and she must needs begin by crying ! She 
excused herself to herself on the plea of home-sickness — 
she had never been more than a week away from her 
grandmother and Chubby before — and set to work afresh 
to reason out her situation. And first of all came the 
question, “ What had she to live for ? ” ^ 

Under her grandmother’s roof, with Chubby’s velvety 
arms about her neck, there had been the same luxurious 
risk in asking the question that a seeker for sensation 
might find in putting his head under a guillotine which 


MRS. DRAFTON IN MELBOURNE. 


1215 


he knows to be fastened securely. There might have 
been no logical answer even then, it is true — the excite- 
ment of the speculation would have lost its fascination 
had there been such an answer at hand — but Chubby’s 
laugh, madame’s sometimes caressing eyes, were more 
satisfactory than logic. The question seemed quite 
another thing now. She had been happy even in ask- 
ing it before, and happiness in existence solves for the 
time being its own riddle. 

Pauline, you see, had never been taught to look as a 
matter of fact upon the possible adjustment hereafter of 
all things at sixes and sevens in the world. If she tried 
to carry her own identity beyond the grave, a convic- 
tion of utter incomprehensibility drove her back. 

Her grandmother, as we have seen, belonged to the 
French philosophical school, and had instructed her in 
the different faiths held by different nations. Pauline 
had learned to hope — not to believe. But such hope 
seemed a slender reed to cling to in her new path. It is 
easy to hope when the present may be accepted as a gauge 
for the future, but even hope itself is sometimes a fine- 
weather friend. So she had nothing for it but to return 
to her first consideration of “ What had she to live for? ” 

Well, to begin with, she had to live for George — 
George, who repeated to her every day of his life that 
* he would die without her. What matter if the prospect 
of being shut up with George always frightened her at 
the outset ? She must waive the question of her individual 
happiness, and never swerve from a few fixed resolves. 
A resolve that her grandmother and Chubby should be 
written to cheerfully and reassuringly, without a hint 
of her heart-aches when she thought of them. A resolve 
to set herself to work, come what might, and go like a 
machine through so much practising, so much work, so 
much reading, at stated hours of the day. A resolve to stifle 
by any means in her power futile regrets and repinings. 

Once on a time her castles in Spain had been inhabited 
by the sort of misty, intangible heroes that go to make 
up a girl’s innocent ideal — a sort of patchwork reflection 
of Sir Kenneth and Guy Livingstone grafted on to a per- 
ambulatory compendium of inexhaustible knowledge. How 
old it made her feel now to think of such a time ! Her 
uribridal-like reflections led her at last to pity George, 


126 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


whose exuberance of happiness would receive so severe 
a check if he could read her thoughts. Surely it will 
not mend matters to make two people miserable instead 
of one. Besides, she is not miserable; disappointment 
is not misery. And is she justified in being disappointed 
even? There had been no glamour upon George before 
his marriage that she should expect him to be different 
now. Strong in her last resolve that he shall find her 
ready to give him a smiling welcome on his return, she 
raised her head that the air might dry all traces of her 
tears, and looked at Melbourne stretched out in the 
distance, silently contrasting it with her favourite scene 
from Beau-S^jour. A grey cloud had hidden the sun 
and blackened all the dusty verdure in the foreground. 

It had darkened the waters in the bay, and thrown a 
gloom on the gloomy mass of blue-stone which Pauline 
recognised as St. Patrick’s Cathedral. While her eyes 
were still travelling over the spires, she heard a “ cooey ” 
from below, and at the same instant George threw a small 
orange over the balustrade into her lap. She ran to 
unlock the bedroom door and get rid of her solemn 
expression while he was coming upstairs. 

He entered noisily, kissing his wife effusively as usual. 
“And now, my old woman,” he said, walking up to the 
glass and pulling down his waistcoat, “ I want you to dress 
up and give the people a treat. There’s just time to catch * 
the five-to-four train from South Yarra if you look alive.” 

“ Pd like to come ; but won’t I do as I am, George ? ” 

She stands before him for approval in her dress of 
softest grey. A narrow blue riband run through her cross 
band linen collar, and fastening her cuffs at the wrist, 
saves it from being Quakerish. 

“ I’ll put on my little black velvet jacket, the one you 
like, you know, and my grey felt hat, and I’m sure I’ll 
do then.” 

“ That’s always the way with you ” replied her husband, 
with an implied irritation in his tone. “Whenever I want 
you to come out a swell, it’s ‘ Won’t I do as I am ? ’ 
You just do as I tell you, and we’ll go straight off to 
town and ‘do the block.’ If you don’t take the shine 
out of some of them. I’ll hand over my money.” 

Pauline turns away, and contemplates wdthout much 
good-will the different triumphs of Fifine’s skill hanging 


MRS. DRAFTON IN MELBOURNE. 


127 


in her wardrobe. She is not at all indifferent to her 
pretty dresses, nor to the pleasure of being admired in 
them, but to give a zest to the wearing of a pretty dress 
there must be somebody to please. Pauline knows 
that in all the throng before whom she must parade her 
violet silk this same afternoon there will be nobody about 
whose approval she cares. She wonders within herself 
sometimes at the sudden apathy that seems to have over- 
come her regarding these new faces and surroundings. 

“By-the-bye, Pauline,” says George, between the in- 
tervals of brushing down his cut-away coat, “ the Sydney 
mail’s in. I believe I’ve got a letter for you somewhere 
or other.” 

Oh, George ! ” the violet silk tumbles on the floor, and 
two white outstretched arms are held forth for her letter. 

“ Where the devil have I put it ! ” ejaculates George, 
fumbling in all his pockets, while Pauline stands anxiously 

by. 

“ Don’t keep me waiting so long, pray ! ” she pleads ; 
“you make me feel like the lion before he’s fed.” 

“ Here you are,” exclaims George at last, pulling an 
ornamental gilt-edged envelope, strangely blurred, from 
his trousers pocket. “ And look here, Pauline ! I wish 
you’d write over to your people and tell them to direct 
the kid’s letters for him. You’ll be the laughing-stock 
of the servants, I tell you ! ” 

Pauline’s eyes meanwhile are moist with tenderness as 
she follows the variations of Chubby’s excursive upstrokes 
along the blotted page. 

“ I want you to come back ; I want you not to stop 
so long away. I want you to make the postman tell 
me what day you will come back.” 

This, under hazardous orthographical flights, is the 
burden of Chubby’s epistle. Pauline knows every word 
by heart before she answers George. Then, while she 
is arraying herself in the violet silk, she remarks with 
a freezing intonation — 

“I’m sorry the servants should be so sensitive on the 
point of caligraphy. Would it not be worth your while to 
suggest their giving a few hints to your uncle when he 
leaves his written directions on the slate in the hall ? ” 

George cannot reply ill-temperedly. He is watching 
the staged of progress in the career of the violet silk. 


128 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


The possibility of even feeling ill-tempered with a wife 
who has such capabilities of showing off a dress ! 

He bursts out laughing at her -dignity. 

“There you go! If I want to get your blood up, 
IVe only to pass a remark about Chubby ! I only 
hope you’ll stick up for your husband the same ; but 
after all, who could be in a scot with you?” 

Pauline cuts short his endearments by a reminder of 
the time, and together they pass out through the garden 
on their way to the railway station. 

It is possible that the much dreaded future would 
have put on quite a new aspect for her had George 
shown a little more power of adaptability to her tastes. 
If, in this early stage of their married life, , he had 
told her to put on her hat and come with him to 
see the shop windows in town, and if on their reaching 
Melbourne he had turned in, it is hard to say where 
— public places of interest are not as yet too profusely 
scattered over Melbourne — but anywhere, to the public 
library, the picture gallery — a music-shop even, and 
there shown himself not utterly estranged to all the 
interests she had moved among from her childhood, 
part of the blank would at least have been filled up. 
But George was much too intent upon displaying his 
prize to consider whether the prize came willingly. 

Collins Street was crowded as they walked slowly 
up it ; a whole line of carriages was drawn up before 
Alston & Brown’s, and the same people passed backwards 
and forwards interminably. George took special care 
to greet everybody when Pauline was by his side. He 
bombarded her with directions as they passed up the 
street. ‘‘ Look across the road, quick ! There’s O. 

bowing to us ! Hold hard, Pauline ! look in at this 
window a moment. I want D. to see you. Good 

gracious me ! ” in a tone of disgust, “ why didn’t you 
bow to Cuttem?” 

“ Was that Mr. Cuttem ? ” says Pauline blandly. “ But 
I don’t know him.” 

“ Don’t know him ! and I introduced you to him 
the other day ! He’s an awful particular chap that 

way. Look sharp 1 here’s Shakem coming. He’s a 
Melbouri^e club fellow. I pilled him for a fiver last 

time I was in town.” ' 


MRS. DRAFTON IN MELBOURNE. 


29 


These and other disjointed scraps of information 
were poured out between the intervals of recognition. 
Pauline knew who was running a horse “ on the quiet,” 
who spent a thousand a year on her dress, who was 
“sticking up” to an heiress, and as soon as she knew 
all these facts she forgot them. 

When they had sauntered up to the corner of Queen 
Street for the second time, George paused, and apparently 
cogitated with himself before speaking. 

“ I say, Pauline, Pve a jolly good mind to take you 
round to Kirk’s Bazaar just for a minute. You won’t 
mind, will you ? There’s no sale on just now, I think, 
and I won’t keep you long. I want you to see a two- 
year-old I bought there this morning — a Panic, mind 
you — a regular ‘ plum.’ I’ve engaged a sort of man- 
of-war’s man to take him up to the station. You never 
saw such a cure in your life.” 

Pauline expresses her willingness to go wherever 
George pleases, and accompanies him to the horse- 
yards at the upper end of Bourke Street. Now she 
is for the first time made aware of the centaur-like 
existence of some of her fellow-creatures. Men with 
a peculiar kind of check running through their waist- 
coats are passing in and out, and a groom with turned- 
up shirt-sleeves is hosing a horse in the back of the yard. 

In the pride of his purchase George almost forgets 
to note Avhether any one is looking at his wife. He 
directs that the apimal shall be walked up and down 
in front of him. 

“For a youngster,” he explains to Pauline, “he’s got 
some of the most remarkable points I ever saw. But 
then his was an imported dam, and Panic’s the 
grandest sire in the colonies. This is between ourselves, 
you know, but I reckon I’ve as good a show of winning 
a Melbourne Cup with him one of these days as any 
man in the country.” 

It is all so strange to Pauline. She dares not risk 
a surmise, lest George should laugh at her ignorance 
before every one in the yard. She remarks naively 
that it is a pretty colour and has a pretty mane, and 
then her eyes are caught by the man who is holding 
it — a man so. distinct from the horsey type surrounding 
him that the incongruity of his position strikes even her 

I 


130 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


as ridiculous. A heavy, slouching man, in a greasily 
dark suit, with cheeks that reminded Pauline of an 
inflated suet pudding, and two eyes like currants very 
much in the background. For the rest — all hair un- 
combed, shaggy, like rusty black yarn. 

“ Avast there, my pretty one,” he said hoarsely, as 
the colt planted its hoof on his foot; “you ain’t got 
your sailin’ directions clear, my pet, or you wouldn’t 
be failin’ foul of an old hulk like me ! ” 

He spoke with the insinuating gruffness of the fox in 
Grimm’s tales who has to swallow a lump of chalk 
before he can make the little kids at home by them- 
selves believe that he is the old goat, their mother. 

“ You’ll have to look well after the colt, my man, 
going up in the train,” remarks George warningly ; “ I’ll 
come and settle it with you to-morrow' morning. If you 
bring him up all right, I daresay I’ll find a job for 
you on the station too; and if you want me at any 
time, you just inquire at the office of Messrs. Cavil & 
Carp, Flinders Lane — Mr. Josiah Carp, you know — 
that’s my uncle ! ” 

The man’s currant eyes twinkle. “ Bless your heart, 
I’ve known Carp this many a year — sober, steady man, 
Carp” — the currants begin to disappear — “ open-’anded, 
free-spoken man — eh ? ” — the currants threaten to go 
in altogether. 

George is undecided whether to curse the man’s 
impudence or to laugh at him, but the currants having 
come out again, and beaming with an air of fatherly 
regard upon Pauline, he is appeased. 

“ Pulver, this lady is Mrs. Drafton,” says George with 
emphasis. 

Pulver, with a preternaturally grave expression, draws 
one leg behind another, as if he were going to curtsey, 
and suddenly pulls forward his shaggy head by dragging 
at the handiest piece of tow dependent from his forehead. 

But it is neither the grotesque attitude nor the 
travestied bow which arrests Pauline’s attention. It is 
the simple earnest look of dog-like devotion that he 
sends her from his currant eyes. And though she is 
not so forlorn as to think that she may ever nave need 
of Pulver’s friendship, she is less depressed on leaving 
the yard than on entering it, ' 


MRS. DRAFTON IN MELBOURNE. 


131 


“ I daresay he knows my father’s ship,” she says when 
they have left the yards ; “ I should' like to ask him about 
that. — Shall I see him again at Rubria, George ? ” 

“ Like enough, my d^arling. But he’s rather a rough- 
looking customer for you to be seen talking to. Now 
I’ve got that yearling on my mind, I won’t rest till I’m 
back. Besides, I must have a good buck in at my 
work. What do you say to it if we make a start with 
the buggy to-morrow?” 

“ Just as you like, George ” (absently). 

“Just as / like !” repeats George; “that’s a good one, 
Pauline ! You were for giving me too little of my own 
way before we were married, and dash it if you’ve got 
a will of your own at all now. Aren’t you on the tenter- 
hooks to see your home?” 

“Yes, I shall be glad to go ; and do you know,” lowering 
her voice, “your uncle gives me the nightmare.” 

“ Oh, he’s an old beast ! I’ve taken stock of him 
once or twice when he was looking at you. My word, 
Pauline, if I thought he’d said a syllable to vex you, 
I’d make it hot for him, I tell you ! ” 

“ He’s never said a word to vex me — only ” she 

hesitates. 

“ Only what ? ” repeats her husband impatiently. “ Out 
with it ! ” 

“ Only — I don’t like him.” 

Pauline does not like to own that Josiah’s looks 
alarm her. He glares at her when the Sydney mail 
comes in with an expression which makes her cold. 
Pursuing his plan of finding her out, he has drawn his 
own deductions from the sudden lighting up of her face 
when her letters are brought into the room. How 
indeed should such a nature as Mr. Carp’s comprehend 
that the minute French handwriting of a grandmother, 
and the sprawling address of a very little boy, have 
power to make her lips quiver before she opens the 
envelopes ? 

As they leave the South Yarra train, families in clusters 
pour out of the carriages, and parties of five or six set 
off to their homes in company. Pauline, with her husband 
by her side, a husband to whom she is as the very 
heart’s blood and soul, envies these happy people bound 
by a family communion of interests and s\ mpathies. 


132 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


What then of all her resolves — her self-tutoring ? She 
is still so young. There is time for her to change her 
present state of mind a hundred times oyer in the next 
few years. I^et her take the hour, not the day only, 
as it comes. What excuse can she plead for restless 
discontent ? Is she not going back to Wattle Villa, 
where Mr. Carp is to give a dinner-party the same even- 
ing; and has not George bought a two-year-old that 
very morning that is to win a Melbourne Cup ? ‘ 











CHAPTER XII. 

MR. CARP AT HOME. 


“Where more is meant than meets the ear.” 

—Milton. 

Mr. Carp invited his friends without regard to theii 
possible assimilation. It was his habit to entertain 
them once a month in alphabetical order, ignoring all 
political differences between the B’s, or the charitable 
sentiments entertained towards each other by such 
philanthropists as the C’s. He acknowledged as his 
acquaintances only such people as were rich and re- 
spectable enough to invite him in return, and to pre- 
serve the tone of dull mediocrity pervading the Wattle 
Villa dinner-parties. Josiah’s suspicious glance would 
have been directed uneasily at any guest whose con- 
versational or musical powers were of a quality to stop 
the babble of commonplace talk. He held in some- 
thing like contempt any display that bordered on the 
professional. The artist world was not respectable : 
people who would give you a crown’s worth of emotion 
at any time you were willing to pay for it were not to 
be spoken of in a breath with people who advanced 
the world’s interests by selling wool and speculating 
in sugars. George, remembering the dreary nature of 
his uncle’s entertainments, prepared his wife for an 
evening of suppressed yawning. He was waiting to 
take her downstairs, looking, as it seemed to Pauline, 
with 'his slight muscular figure encased in the orthodox 
black, and his fair moustache setting off his sunburnt 
skin, better than she had ever seen him look before. 
She acknowledged to herself that it was a proof of 
the triviality of her nature that this slight fact should 
make her lighter-hearted for the instant, and more 
animated in the selection of the flowers for her hair, 

*33 


134 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


She had despoiled her dress of all its bridal bravery. 
Fifine’s studied arrangement of Brussels lace was packed 
away, and she had brought in only some scarlet geranium, 
still flowering on a hedge round the orangery, to relieve 
the dead white of her dress. Her lips, like another gera- 
nium, a shade more crimson in hue, set ofif the clear 
pallor of her face as the flowers set off the dull ivory 
of her dress. Her only ornaments were of dead gold, 
bought for her by George in emulation of Jamesina’s, and 
the only sparkle about her person gleamed from the 
heavy coronal of plaited hair that crowned her small head. 
George felt that to make his entry into his uncle’s drawing- 
room with this queenly figure by his side was atonement 
sufficient for bygone penitential evenings in his early 
youth — evenings before he had worn tail-coats, and his 
uncle had instructed the butler in an undertone not to fill 
Master George’s glass with champagne, evenings when 
the tail-coats had induced a greater feeling of constraint 
than before^ evenings when he had found no resource 
against the dulness but to laugh saturninely at his uncle’s 
propositions in his sleeve. He almost trembled with exul- 
tation as he hurried his wife downstairs and whispered his 
approbation in her ear. “ You’ll put a set on them, my 
old woman ! Keep your head well up, that’s all.” 

His anticipations were in nowise disappointed. The 
involuntary rustling of drapery and turning of heads, as 
Pauline walked into the room, w^ere as intoxicating 
music to George. He could see, after she was seated, 
that the curiosity at war with good-breeding found vent 
in glances from all sides in her direction, and he had 
the triumph of stopping half way a furtive stare from 
Josiah’s hard eyes. 

Pauline, knowing nobody as yet, and keeping even 
Beau-S^jour in the background while she took in the 
details of the scene, made a hundred reflections in the 
course of a minute. The prevailing hue of the Wattle 
Villa drawung-room was yellow; there was nothing to 
link it with that dreamy world of imagination suggested 
by the drawing-room in her own home. There was more 
gilt frame-work than picture. An upholsterer’s taste had 
crowded every novelty to sit upon or lounge upon into the 
oblong room, had gilded the cornices, and turned the grate 
into bars of gold, and laid on the floor a carpet scattered 


MR. CARP AT HOME. 


135 


with autumn leaves. Still it was pretty, Pauline thought ; 
it was a sort of material incarnation of Josiah’s money- 
making spirit. With her odd faculty for applying quota- 
tions, apt or inapt, a line telling her that the “ trail of the 
serpent was over them all ” ran in her head while she was 
making her mental comments. From the furniture to the 
guests ! Pauline saw bland prosperity stamped on every 
face — on good-natured, rotund mammas ; on slim misses, 
embedded in flounces ; on flourishing papas, waiting with 
such an air of affability to reply to the first remark addressed 
to their ears, that no one would suspect them of having 
made their wives cry on the way to the dinner-party. 

Her attention was next drawn to Mr. Carp himself. 
She felt that there must be a lurid fire burning somewhere 
in that ample body ; it flickered beneath his bald head, 
and gave such an uncomfortable lustre to his eyes, that 
Pauline could think of nothing but the wolf in Red 
Riding Hood when she looked at him. 

She noticed that he was very polite to his guests, 
saying, “ ’Ow do you do ! ” “ ’Ope you’re well ! ” alter- 
nately, as they filed into the room. What more she 
might have thought of this nature was interrupted by 
the advent of a gentleman whom Mr. Carp brought up 
and formally introduced to her as Mr. Pippin. “And 
I’ll leave you under ’is wing!” said Josiah, implying 
thereby that Mr. Pippin was to take her in to dinner. 

The conjunction of the name with the man caused 
Pauline to drop hastily the two dark eyes she had 
raised while the introduction was going on. Mr. 
Pippin was so fresh-coloured, that on the shady side 
of forty his cheeks had a fixed rosiness like those of an 
overgrown boy. Pauline’s long lashes almost touched 
her cheek as he sat by her side. She would not for 
worlds have betrayed the treacherous , mirth that was 
dancing in their dark depths. The rosy-cheeked Mr. 
Pippin was compassionate. He had failed to catch 
Pauline’s name, and saw in the young bride a shy girl, 
making perhaps her first appearance at a grown-up 
dinner-party. But Mr. Pippin would be nothing loth 
to reassure her. From a bachelor’s point of view he 
was accustomed to look upon very young, very artless 
girls, as sufficiently charming to look at. It was a pity, 
Mr. Pippin thought, that one should be constrained to 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


136 

talk to them. He prefaced his remarks to women of 
all ages by “ Will you allow me say ” — and then said 
it. His charitable designs upon Pauline could not be 
carried out until he had given her his arm and 

followed the stream of people making for the dining- 
room. He found himself installed by her side under 

the overshadowing glory of a massive gold epergne, pre- 
sented to Josiah as chairman of the Society for the 
Furtherance of Public Morality. George, just opposite, 
in the neighbourhood of one of those monied young 
ladies whom his uncle had designated as being still in 
the market, chafed at the intrusion of the epergne, 
because he was obliged to look round it when he 

wanted to see his wife. When his soup-plate had been 
removed Mr. Pippin cleared his throat. 

“Will you permit me to ask, miss — ahem — ahem — 
whether this is your first visit to Melbourne? I believe 
I gathered from Mr. Carp’s words that you are a 
resident of Sydney.” 

Pauline looks bravely up beyond the rosy cheeks to 
the good-natured twinkling eyes. 

“ Yes ; I have lived in Sydney all my life so far.” 

“ Which you will allow me to observe,” rejoins Mr. Pippin 
gallantly, “cannot have extended over a very alarming 
period of time. Am I mistaken in supposing that your visit 
is one of pleasure purely, or have the superior attractions, of 
our seminaries influenced your motives ? ” 

Pauline’s laughter at this remark brings George’s head 
round from behind the epergne as if she were a baby and 
he were playing at Bo-peep with her across the table. 

“-Forgive me for laughing, please, but do you mean 
you think I am at school ? ” 

She cannot keep her lips in order. They part over her 
small row of narrow white teeth quite against her will. 

Mr. Pippin feels at a disadvantage. 

“I had inferred something of the sort; but if I have 
your permission to — to — retract my words, I will do so 
at once. At least,” he adds, looking again at her child- 
like eyeS) “you will allow me to ask what there is so 
outre in my conjecture?” 

“ Nothing — only that I’m married,” says Pauline, 
suddenly grown solemn again. 

The rosy-cheeked man starts. 


MR. CARP AT HOME. 


137 


“I beg your pardon — I am sure— I could hardly 
suppose — — May I venture once again to inquire your 
name?” 

“Pauline — that is, Mrs. Drafton, I mean,” she replies, 
stifling a sigh. 

Mr. Pippin peers round the ^pergne. “And that is 
Mr. Drafton opposite?” 

“That is Mr. Drafton opposite.” 

The rosy-cheeked man relapses into silence. 

Broken sentences from diflerent parts of the table 
reach Pauline’s ears in disconnected order. George is 
warming to his subject with a grizzled man on the 
other side of him. 

“As far as acting on the square’s concerned,” Pauline 
hears him say, “ you don’t find it carried out more in 
one line than another. You’re just as likely to lose your 
money backing any one of those pedestrians as if you put it 
on a horse. It’s easier managed, don’t you see ? A man 
can pull himself up better than his horse, you know ! ” and 
the grizzled man is politely assenting. 

Then Pauline turns her eyes to the head of the table, 
but turns them away discomfited when she finds that 
Josiah is looking at her. Mr. Pippin, having taken his 
time to recover from the shock of hearing that the 
young girl he compassionated is married, shows symptoms 
of becoming communicative for a second time. 

“ And what, may I ask, are your impressions of 
Melbourne ? ” 

“ I can hardly say,” answers Pauline, as seriously as 
if it were a matter which had caused her some inward 
wrestling already. “ I know what I don’t like about 
it, but I don’t know that I’ve found out what I do 
like — yet.” 

Mr. Pippin feels that she has smoothed the way for 
another question. “ Will you allow' me to beg that 
you will tell me what is distasteful to you in our 
metropolis. I shall then be emboldened to hope that 
you regard with a favourable eye whatever you may 
omit to mention — of course from a purely negative point 
of view.” 

“Well, then, I don’t like — I forget what it is called — 
oh, the Block ; and I don’t like the corner of Bourke 
Street, opposite the post-office ; and I don’t like any of 


138 IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 

the streets — much — when I am in them ; and I don’t 
like Melbourne at all except from the verandah of his 
house upstairs.” 

“That last clause is very sweeping,” remarks the rosy- 
cheeked gentleman drily. “ Will you enlighten me as 
to your objections to the ‘ Block ’ and the unfortunate 
corner of Bourke Street?” 

“There would be no objection to the Block,” she 
says gravely, “ if it were not for the people. Some of 
the shops are splendid ; and don’t you agree with me 
about the Bourke Street corner? It seems to be as 
full of all sorts of out-at-elbows, down-in-the-world men, 
as Collins Street is of people of another sort.” 

“ Both classes are idlers,” remarks Mr. Pippin shortly. 

“Yes” — hesitatingly — “but idleness in tatters is so un- 
justifiable. I should like to be absolute for a little bit, 
and march off every man that takes up his stand opposite 
the post-office ! ” 

“ And where would you march him to ? ” asks the 
rosy-cheeked man, amused. 

“To all those dreary wastes between Emerald Hill 
and Melbourne, or to those swamps near the railway 
station. I would not have so many idle people even 
helping to breathe the air about Melbourne while there 
was so much to be done.” 

“ I see,” said Mr. Pippin soothingly, “ you have strong 
opinions on the subject of the consumer who is not a 
producer. Well, as, unfortunately for this struggling 
generation, we men are too obtuse or too wide-awake 
to allow your sex to legislate for us, you must make 
your husband go into Parliament and act as your 
mouthpiece. I shall obliterate myself on the occasion 
of his speeches, being convinced that I am listening to 
you by proxy.” 

“ Mr. Carp is in Parliament,” says Pauline irrelevantly. 

“Yes,” replies Mr. Pippin, glancing at her curiously. 

Their glances met. Not another word was exchanged 
on the subject of Josiah’s oratorical powers, but each 
understood the other. Then Mr. Pippin proceeded to 
explain to her what we have all heard before — that there 
is such a thing as liberty of the subject ; that if men 
will not work to put bread into their own mouths, they 
cannot be compelled to do so; that sooner or later 


MR. CARP AT HOME. 


139 


they will be taken up — not as Pauline proposes— for 
standing in ragged clothes opposite the post-office, but 
for standing anywhere and doing nothing ; and that when 
they are taken up, they will have no choice given them 
but that of working before they can eat. To all of 
which Pauline, dallying with game and ice, listens atten- 
tively, until Mr. Pippin forgets to ask her permission 
to say what he is going to say, and George opposite 
looks round the ^pergne and wonders. There being 
no representative lady to do the honours of the house, 
the matron on Josiah’s right hand looks mysteriously 
at the matron on his left, and a general uprising of 
the fair sex follows, Mr. Pippin much disconcerted at 
being cut short in a disquisition on John Stuart Mill. 
Pauline feels very much alone in the drawing-room 
among all these strange ladies. She is thankful when a 
large, fair, good-natured woman crosses over to the sofa 
^ where she is sitting and takes up a place by her side. 

“ It is too bad of Mr. Carp,” remarks the large woman 
heartily, “not to let his friends know you were here, 
Mrs. Drafton. I’m sure you’d have been innundated 
with callers. How much longer are you to stay in 
town ? ” 

“ Only till to-morrow, I think ; my husband says he 
has been too long away from the station already.” 

“ Ah, indeed ! Do you know anything of station life 
yourself? ” 

“Nothing at all; but I have made up my mind to 
like it.” 

“I’m afraid that’s much the same thing as making 
up your mind to like going to sea before you’ve ever 
been on it. But it all depends. When I first went 
to the bush, straight out from home, too — we hadn’t 
anything better than a slab hut to live in; there wasn’t 
a servant to be got for love or money — every one was 
gold mad — and I just had to turn to and do the 
cooking and washing — and nurse my baby too into 
the bargain.” 

“ Oh, did you really ! And weren’t you . at all un- 
happy ? ” 

Pauline regards the large, fair, jewelled hands, the 
smooth, sleek skin, and imagines with difficulty this 
dignified woman on her knees with a scrubbing-brush, or 


140 IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 

standing before a wash-tub wringing out her husband’s 
shirts. 

“ Well, it wasn’t pleasant, of course,” laughs her friend, 
“but it was a good thing if there was nothing worse than 
hard work to be afraid of. You know you were never 
sure of the blacks in those days. Now you’ll find it all 
very different up at Rubria. We say the squatters don’t 
know what it means to rough it now-a-days ; and yet, my 
dear,” with a sudden tenderness, as she looked again at 
the soft young face turned towards her, “I don’t know 
but what you may find it dull sometimes too. Now, 
don’t you think me forward, but if ever you want to 
come to town for a bit without your husband — to do 
some shopping, maybe, or have a change, there’s no tell- 
ing — mind you come to me ! And if you feel lonely, 
or want a piece of an old matron’s experience, I’d be 
so glad if you’d write to me. I’ve got daughters of my 
own too. You look about the same age as my eldest, 
but dear me, I keep her in the nursery still.” 

The stout lady laughed, with the soft pleasant laugh 
of good-hearted, kindly-natured fat people. 

Such offers as hers, such glances as Pulver’s, such 
cut-and-dried conversation even as Mr. Pippin’s, were 
all crumbs of comfort to poor anxious Pauline. She 
wanted everybody’s good-will. She would have liked 
to cry out to this motherly woman, and lay bare the 
trouble that stared at her in the morning, and lay by her 
in the night-time, like the chill ghost that thrust Rupert 
from the arms of the fair Isabel. But such trouble 
as hers must never be admitted. She must put it on 
one side even in her communings with herself. 

Here are the gentlemen following each other in from 
the dining-room. Her stout lady friend has been decoyed 
to the other end of the room before Pauline has had 
time to thank her, and George, with an unmistakable 
stamp of after-dinner elation on his fair flushed face, is 
making his way to tlie sofa. 

“ Pauline,” he whispers — not unsteadily, be it remarked ; 
George n^ver forgets himself so far — but in a whisper 
he would not have assumed if he had not dined, “you 
are a sider ! What on earth was that fellow talking to 
you about all dinner-time?” 

“I can’t tell it you all just now,” says Pauline 


MR. CARP AT HOME. 


141 


nervously, unconsciously freeing her skirts from his neigh- 
bourhood ; “ principally about useless mouths, I think, 
and John Stuart Mill, and the people at the corner of 
Bourke Street.” 

“ Bourke Street!” cries George, his thoughts instantly 
reverting to his yearling. “ I hope to goodness, Pauline, 
you had the savey to say nothing about going to Kirk’s 
Bazaar ! It’s very bad lorm, I assure you, for a lady to 
be seen stravaging about to such places ! ” 

“No, no! we weren’t talking about ourselves at all. 
Do sit somewhere else, please, George ! You, who care 
so much about what people think.” 

“Think! they’ll only think we’re a little spooney — 
that’s all. Look here, Pauline, am I a man or a 
mouse ? ” 

“ Oh, pray, George, don’t terrify me ! I don’t under- 
stand you, truly. Here’s your uncle coming to speak 
to me.” 

Josiah’s chill eyes were like a breath of the cold south 
wind on George’s heated forehead. They gleamed down 
for an instant on the young couple before their owner 
spoke, and then they rested upon George. 

“ ’Ere you, George ! don’t you see Miss Smith’s wait- 
ing to have the leaves of ’er music turned over?” 

Miss Smith w'as in point of fact seated on the music- 
stool pensively taking off her quondong bracelets, prepara- 
tory to a vigorous execution of “ Home sweet home,” 
with variations. 

At certain moments George succumbed to the old 
sense of subserviency to his uncle. This was one of 
these moments. He went like a man who has been 
magnetised to do duty at the piano. Josiah, thrusting 
himself into his place, took a rapid survey of his guests. 
Men holding their cups of coffee in their hands were 
talking to each other or bending over a lady’s chair. 
Two recently-betrothed lovers were pretending to look 
at an album of celebrated characters. Mr. Pippin was 
hovering round the sofa occupied by Mr. Carp and 
Pauline. Pauline sits motionless, with sad,, downcast 
eyes. The fault must be partly in herself after all. If 
she is prepared that George’s words should jar upon 
her, the discord must perforce follow. Her very brain 
suffers when he will not chime in with her mood. But 


142 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


does she chime in with his? He has a greater wealth 
of love at his disposal, that he should lavish it upon a 
being who shrinks away, as she has just done, at his 
approach. 

Josiah breaks in upon her meditations • harshly. 

“That ’usband of yours 'as a weak ’ead, Mrs. D.” 
He stares fiercely at her, as watching for the effect of 
his remark. Not a movement of the eyelids betrays 
that she has heard him. 

“And he’s too much addicted to bettin’,” continues 
Josiah, determined to stretch her still farther on the 
embers. “You’ll see he won’t stop till he’s beggared 
himself. You never know the well’s run dry till there’s 
no more water to be got out of it. I’ve advised ’im 
for the best. You’ll ’ave to take ’im in ’and now.” 

Pauline take him in hand ! In the bitterness of her 
heart she could almost laugh at the proposition. A 
household darling — fresh from the flower-scented, briny 
air of peaceful Beau-Sdjour, as innocent of the world 
and its ways as a young pullet that has not yet made 
the tour of the poultry-yard — is it for her to bring to 
bear her dreams for the regeneration of humanity upon 
practical, demonstrative, self-satisfied George ? What 
appropriateness would there be in obtruding the 
problems she has conned over with her grandmother, 
the rose-coloured flights of fancy she has indulged 
in with Chubby, upon her husband ? If he canr.ot 
take the lead in worldly matters, then she is indeecs a 
rudderless, unpiloted vessel, buffeted about without hope 
of anchorage. Josiah sees her breast heave under the 
weight of this new terror. 

“Don’t you tell your ’usband what I’ve been j.aying 
of to you. But you keep him off the turf, that s my 
advice ; and you rely upon it, Mrs. D., you’ve always 
got a friend in me.” 

Simple words these to draw from Pauline a mute 
prayer that Heaven will preserve her from Josiah’s 
friendship. But there is such a thing even in a guile- 
less nature as an intuitive recognition of evil, whether 
the evil be latent or otherwise. Pauline does not even 
reason about her aversion to Mr. Carp. It is instinctive, 
and there is no more to be said. Mr. Pippin never 
has the satisfaction of talking about John Stuart Mill 


MR. CARP AT HOME. 


143 


a second time. Pauline is called to the piano in her 
turn, and even Josiah is fain to forgive her for inter- 
rupting a conversation about the drought when he 
hears her sing. There is not much power, but a great 
measure of sweet tunefulness in her voice. George is 
always lifted out of. himself at the sound. With her 
fingers on the keys of the instrument, and her own 
notes ringing in her ears, Wattle Villa melts away like 
an oppressive dream. She is back in the Beau-Sejour 
drawing-room, singing to her grandmother in the twi- 
light ; the old lady is beating time to “ Le Soleil de 
ma Bretagne” with her knitting pins, and Chubby’s 
rosy face is looking up from the Ollendorff before him 
on the hearthrug. Poor Pauline ! the bitterest pang of 
all is to know that she has been her own undoing. 



f 


CHAPTER XIII. 


PAULINE’S FATHER REAPPEARS UPON THE 
SCENE. 

“ What wind hath blown him hither? ’’ — Milton. 

The sun was tardy one autumn morning in ^ rising over 
the Murray plains. Nature and a solitary selector’s 
horse bestirred themselves to show him that it was 
time to be up and doing. His scouts, the rosy tipped 
clouds, performed a series of gorgeous dissolving views 
for the solitary selector’s benefit — the magpies were 
chanting their tuneful orisons for the selector’s ears 
alone — and the cackling jackasses were laughing in dis- 
cordant chorus (like the demons in Rip Van Winkle), 
all on the selector’s behoof. But the selector heeded 
neither spectacle nor concert. The inquisitive magpies 
could see nothing beneath his pulled down wide-awake 
but a light brown beard, peppered here and there by 
drab-coloured hairs, and the tip of an aristocratic nose 
tweaked by the chill morning air into a bloodless white. 
He was so bolstered up in his hairy ulster, that the 
magpies could not decide whether he was a slim man 
in a stout overcoat or a stout man in a slim overcoat. 
Seated in the front of his cart, his back supported by 
various • knobby projections — say the legs of a kitchen 
table, for instance— that bulged out from beneath the 
tarpaulin covering behind him, he had the preoccupied 
air of a man whose relations with himself are of too 
unsatisfactory a nature to leave room for any musings 
as to his relations with the world outside of him ; only, 
on stroking his beard, the moisture that it left on a 
hand which was a worthy competitor for the palm of 
whiteness with his nose, caused him to push back his 
wide-awake suddenly and look across the unbroken 
grey plain at the yellow rim of sun, beginning its upward 
climb with an air of being master of the situation. 

^44 


PAULINE'S FATHER REAPPEARS. 145 

There was nothing in that look to answer to the 
selector’s expectations. The higher the sun climbed, 
the- more fiercely he shone. As for the shrivelled brown 
pasturage upon which he was glaring, it was as much 
like the soft green grass that it ought to have been as 
a withered old crone is like round peach-coloured 
girl. The selector sighed therefore, and looked a 
second time across the plain — not hopefully now, but 
despondingly. In lowering his eyes he became aware 
of an object in the distance that interposed its black 
outline between himself and the sun. There were no 
tree stumps on the plain — it was a wide dingy level; 
moreover the selector, still watching intently, , saw that 
the object moved. He stood up in his cart shading 
his eyes with his white fingers, and making up his mind 
that he knew what he was looking at. A row of native 
companions, of course, standing on one leg — as is 
their wont — like recruits going to drill. The “ of 
course” became a “perhaps” as the selector drew 
nearer. Well, a cluster of friendly emus, no doubt, 
viciously and incontinently pecking at the bare earth, 
as is their wont to. But as the cart advanced the 
selector discarded this supposition likewise. He had 
it now. Some Murray blacks, to be sure, carousing in 
the vicinity of a township. The selector gave it up 
after this, and pricked up his steed like the knights of 
old, until the legs of the kitchen table threatened to 
kick a hole through the tarpaulin. He pulled up 
only when he was close to the object that had mystified 
him. A buggy in the undignified dilemma of resting 
on three wheels, like a dog with his hind leg doubled 
upy turned out to be the Murray black of his last con- 
jecture— his native companions were two hobbled horses 
making aimless jumps in their search after a breakfast — 
and his w'andering emu was a mountainous confusion 
of buggy cushions, shawls, wraps, and opossum rugs. 

The selector drew cautiously nearer to reconnoitre. 
He concluded that somebody had come to grief, and 
pulling up his apathetic horse, fastened the reins with 
somewhat inexpert fingers, and walked delicately, like 
Agag, to the afore-mentioned mountain of rugs.- Two 
human heads protruded therefrom. A man’s, tied tightly 
up in a white handkerchief, which left visible only some 

K 


146 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


I 


sandy coloured beard and the end of a sunburnt nose 
— a woman’s, of which all that the selector could see 
was a dishevelled mass of dusky twisted hair and part 
of a clear white forehead streaked with blue on the 
temple like a statue. Before the selector had time to 
consider what he must do, or rightly to take in the 
position of affairs at all, this dusky head moved round. 
Two dark sleepy eyes, coloured like the hair, opened 
full upon him, and a voice, speaking as if in continuation 
of a worrying dream, said anxiously and indistinctly, 
“ Father ! ” The selector started as if the voice had 
said “ Stand,” and he had seen a pistol pointed at his 
head. The eyes meanwhile were opening wider. The 
look of dazed recognition had turned into a look .of 
half terrified and hopeless bewilderment. The selector 
felt that it was a time for action. 

“Hush!” he said, stooping right over her, and laying 
a warning hand on her shoulder ; then in a hurried 
whisper breathed into her ear, “You must not know 
me, mind I I can’t explain here I Tell me quickly, 
what are you doing here?” 

“That is my husband,” whispered Pauline. 

An instant after George awoke with an impression 
of having dreamed the most exasperating and utterly 
idiotic dream that a sane man could possibly dream 
in his position and under the present circumstances. 
He had dreamed that here, in this uninhabited wild, 
a strange man had kissed his wife as she lay by his 
side. He sat up by-and-by, with the handkerchief 
still tied round his head, the creases not smoothed 
out of his sleepy face, and stared with dulled eyes 
at his wife. She had crept from under the rugs 
with the uncomfortable feeling that her dress had 
grown to her back, and was kneeling by his side 
with the tumbled coil of hair in her two hands, ruefully 
trying to smooth out the tangles with her back comb. 
But her eyes all the time were so wild, so abstracted, 
that George bethought him of his dream. He tugged 
at the knot under his chin, frowning threateningly at it 
in his efforts to pull it asunder while he was speaking. 

“ How did you sleep, old girl ? I’ll tell you what, I’ve 
a most confounded headache. I believe there were a 
dozen stones under my shoulder blades at least; and 


PAULINE’S FATHER REAPPEARS. 


147 


to cap all, I had a devil of a dream just as 1 was 
waking up.” 

“What was it?” Pauline asks, bringing her hair over her 
face with a jerk, and looking like a wig-block the while. 

“You’ll laugh at me when I tell you. I dreamed a 
fellow — I couldn’t see his face, you know — came right 
up and gave you a kiss under my very nose I Did you 
ever hear such a thing ? ” 

Pauline is silent. She is too frightened to speak. If 
her father cannot disclose his name, it was cruel, it was 
rash to kiss her, and any catastrophe might ensue. She 
labours away wdth trembling fingers at the hair that veils 
her eyes. 

Luckily the knot in George’s improvised nightcap 
diverts his thoughts. He loses patience with it at last, 
and tears it off with a minute portion of his beard, whereat 
he utters an exclamation Pauline does not catch. Then 
he jumps to his feet and utters another exclamation, but 
this one is milder than the last. 

Why, look there, Pauline ! Good gracious me ! I 
say, look there ! What do you think ? We’re not alone ; 
there’s a fellow in a cart making tracks for us.” 

For the selector, apparently sprung from the ground, 
and freshly appearing on the scene, is pulling up his 
horse near the buggy, and now advances towards George 
on foot. 

“Can I be of any assistance?” asks the stranger, 
taking off his hat to Pauline, and addressing himself to 
her husband. “ You have . had an accident, I see,” he 
indicates with his hand the humiliated buggy, looking 
so ridiculously ready for a start and so unable to accom- 
plish it. 

George takes some time to assure himself that this is 
not another phase of his dream. 

“Some broken-down swell, you bet,” he says to himself; 
then aloud, “ Well, thank you ; we had a sort of smash up 
last night The cap of the wheel fell off in the dark, and 
the wheel broke ; we all but had a capsize. I was push- 
ing on for the township, you see, but there was nothing 
for it but to camp down where we were. It’s nothing 
to me, you know, but it’s rather rough upon the wife.” 

He looks round at Pauline, sticking her comb into the 
smoothed-out twisted-up coil . 


148 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


The selector’s eyes follow George’s, and the selector 
bows for the second time. 

The poor child was trembling visibly with excitement 
and apprehension. She had been indifferent enough to 
her father last time she had seen him, still a little girl, 
at Beau-Sdjour. 

Things were altered now, however. She clung to any- 
thing that was of her own blood as she had never clung 
before. But she shrank before the mystery of it. Was 
her father in danger, then ? Had he outlawed himself? 
Was he ashamed because he was poor, and driving in a 
common cart? How came he here without her know- 
ledge. wandering alone within a few hundred miles of 
Beau-Sejour? And why had he adjured her not to 
acknowledge him? Such mysteries terrified her more 
than she dared to think. They happened to people in 
books. That was all very well. People in books knew 
what to say and how to look. She knew nothing. She 
only knew that she wanted to be near her grandmother. 

It was frightful to be called upon to act for herself all of 
a sudden in such emergencies as these. Mr. Carp had told 
her to keep a tight hand over her husband ; her father had 
made her responsible for his safety — perhaps for his life, 
how should she know? — and she had nowhere to turn. 

But she was spared for the moment any sudden 
call upon her ingenuity. George and the stranger, on 
the confidential footing of men who must needs recog- 
nise their dependence upon each other in these lonely 
parts, were hammering, splicing, fixing, working together 
with a will, and all the time George’s tongue was 
wagging as he worked. 

“ Never came to a smash up, that I can remem*ber, 
in my life before. Devil of a job, too, we had with 
the horses. Why, we’d have been home by dinner- 
time if we’d made a start from Cochrane’s this morning. 
Thank you ; yes. The mare on the off side. 1 like to 
keep the whip hand of her, as she’s a bit given to jibbing. 
There ! I think we’ve made a tidy job of it at last. 
You’ll be on your way to a selection, I suppose? 

The selector hesitates. “ I have a — a — partner in the ' 
concern.” 

“ Yes ; I thought you must have a mate somewhere. 
Know this part of the country well ? ” 


PAU LINENS FATHER REAPPEARS. 


149 


“ I knew it as a boy very well ; but I’ve been a — 
a — principally in town since then.” 

“And where are you thinking of settling?” 

“Well, to tell the truth, my partner made the appli- 
cation. I hadn’t much to do with it myself. I know 
it’s somewhere on a station called Rubria. I’m to 
meet my partner at Rubria with the cart and building 
materials. It’s somewhere fronting the river, I think ; 
but really I’m not very clear about it myself.’’ 

“ Rubria’s our station,” says George, looking the selec- 
tor over. “ If my uncle was up here he’d give you a 
warm reception. He’s always cursing that new clause, 
I tell you. Carp’s his name — Josiah Carp, of Messrs. 
Cavil & Carp, Flinders Lane. Everybody knows the 
firm. I’m not of his way of thinking, that’s one thing. 
As far as the selectors go, we must grin and bear it 
— that’s my motto. What’s your partner’s name again ? ” 

The selector gives it deprecatingly. 

“ Pulver he’s called — and a right honest fellow he is too, 
though hardly what you would call a man of the world.” 

“ Pulver ! ” echoes George, “ why, that’s the chap 
who applied for the job of taking up my yearling in 

the train. Well, this is a go ! I’ll tell you what, Mr. 

I don’t know your name, by-thd-bye ? ” 

“Smith,” interrupts the selector; “John Smith.” 

“ Well, Mr. Smith, you can’t do better than follow in 
the track of our buggy wheels. Pulver was to have 
been at the station a couple of days ago, and I expect 
he’ll be on the lookout for you. I daresay he’s got 
his selection pegged out already. I’m sure I’m very 
much obliged to you for your help. Here, Pauline ! 
don’t you carry those rugs. I’ll stow them away. See 
how we’ve fixed up the buggy ! Are you all right ? ” 
helping her in. “ We’d better be started. Good day to 
you ! ” 

This to Mr. Smith, who is looking fixedly at Pauline 
as he salutes her, while George tucks the rug round 
her knees. Pauline dares not look in return. She bows 
her head helplessly, and the buggy drives off, the 
weight of this new mystification making her more silent 
than ever. George has found out already that she is 
not a garrulous woman, but he is beginning to feel 
annoyed now by her monosyllabic replies. 


150 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


“Ton my word, Pauline, one would think you were 
off your chump sometimes; you haven’t a word to 
throw to a dog. Every blessed thing I say, it’s ‘Yes, 
George ! ’ ‘ No, George ! ’ nothing more ; and I don’t 
believe you’re listening half the time.” 

“ The night on the ground confused me, I think,” 
says Pauline, passing her hand over her forehead and 
turning two penitent eyes towards him. 

“ My darling ! ” cries George remorsefully ; “ I’m a brute, 
and you mustn’t mind me. I’m so awfully proud and 
pleased to be taking you home, only I can’t bear to see 
you looking so glum over it. I’m not a bit of a super- 
stitious chap either — you know that — but I must say 
I do feel riled. First we have a break-down when 
we’re almost, as one may say, within cooey of the 
homestead, and next I must dream a beastly dream 
about somebody kissing you that makes me feel almost 
as bad as if it were real.” 

“ I shouldn’t trouble myself about a dream,” answers 
Pauline, constrained to say something. She is beginning 
to wonder in her own mind whether she has not 
been dreaming too. Could anything after all be more 
unreal, more dream-like, than the whole of this morning’s 
experience? Waking on ‘the ground in the midst of a 
profound solitude and silence, or of such sounds only 
as Jean Ingelow- describes, “sounds which make not 
silence less,” she wakes to a reality more strange than 
her dreams. In sleep she had been at Beau-Sejour, 
wandering about among every familiar object, unable to 
find either her grandmother or Chubby. She had called 
hoarsely, as people call in dreams, and the old convict 
gardener had hobbled up at her call with a look of 
dark meaning on his face. Terror had forced her to 
open her eyes, but her brain, still clouded by the images 
she had invoked, conveyed no sense of new bewilder- 
‘ment to her mind at the sight they rested upon. The 
old convict gardener had turned into her father, whose 
face had been a familiar recollection to her for years 
past. His grave scrutiny in nowise alarmed her. She 
was still at Beau-Sdjour ; he had taken them by sur- 
prise, as he had done before, and he would tell her 
where to look for Chubby. She had said “ Father ! ” aloud, 
and her father’s ej^pression had changed. Before she 


PAULINE'S FATHER REAPPEARS. 


iSr 

had time to discover that she was not at Beau-Sejour, 
to substitute for her fern-adorned verandah at home the 
dreary expanse of Murray plain all round her, to under- 
stand that the breathing of the mope-hawk under the 
laurestinus leaves was in reality George snoring near her 
ear — before in fact she realised where she was, or who 
she was, her father, yielding to a fatherly impulse, had 
suddenly pressed his lips against her cheek where she 
lay. In another second he was gone. But now her 
wakening faculties had returned to her. She had crept, 
stiff and dazed, from under the rug ; George had related 
his dream with an air of half peevish amusement, and a 
selectors cart, miraculously appearing from nowhere, was 
wending its way towards them with a bearded man in 
the front. 





CHAPTER XIV. 

PAULINE^S HOME. 

” This is the truth the poet sings, 

That a sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.” 

—Tennyson. 

Self-contemplation rarely leads to satisfactory results, 
and even the substitution of one mental trouble for 
another is sometimes as salutary as the prick of a 
mustard plaster compared with a pain in the chest. 

It was well for Pauline at this time that so new and 
engrossing an interest as her father’s fate should have 
interfered to save her from egotistical self-absorption. 
The selector’s cart had become a stationary speck in the 
far distance by the time she reached the township, and 
when the buggy started afresh on the final stage of the 
journey she saw that the impression made by his dream 
was becoming fainter in George’s mind, and that he was 
prepared to dismiss the subject of their adventures in a 
few characteristic words. 

‘‘ I spotted the fellow first, you know, coming in a 
straight line towards us. I’ll take my oath he wasn’t 
camped anywhere near us in the night. I took his measure 
at once, you see. I’ve seen such a lot of those new 
chums, one way and another. They knock down all their 
money at the first go-off, and then there’s nothing for 
them to do but to go and jackaroo up in Queens- 
land. Say, Pauline ! doesn’t the country look dead and 
alive about here.^” 

“ It looks dead,” replies Pauline, with an emphasis on 
the dead. 

And the sheep ! My goodness me ! ” ejaculates George 
mournfully, as a few blundering rams ran across the track, 
“ talk about their being poor ! Why, they’re only fit for 
the boiling-down pot ! ” 

Tnere is a long interval. George soliloquises sadly as 

152 


PA ULINWS HOME, 


153 


the buggy bounds over the dry herbage. They have 
reached a post and rail fence, and he explains to his 
wife that when he has taken down the slip panels and 
led the horses through the opening they will be at home. 

“ Home ! ” echoes Pauline looking round. So this is 
home ! The unruly thoughts surge up afresh. Is the 
monotonous grey level typical of the life that is beginning 
for her from to-day ? Will the only breaks be as harsh 
as the. line of gaunt gums ahead, twisting themselves like 
tortured souls out of their shreddy bark } the only goal 
as far off, as impalpable, as the horizon that bounds them ? 
Again the buggy rattles over the dry rutty earth. Pauline 
must now learn to recognise the landmarks about her home. 

“ ril make a bushman of you in no time, my old 
woman,” remarks George encouragingly. “ You just 
remember this is the track right bang to the homestead. 
You go along it, you see, for a matter of four or five 
miles, and then you come to the home paddock.” 

During the next hour there is Hterally nothing to see. 
Even the birds seem to be of the same opinion, and only 
the stupid sheep nibble mechanically at the tussocks still 
left on the dusty soil. But at last Pauline utters an 
exclamation. 

“ Oh, George I I see a sort of uneven line of trees — 
such pretty trees, with dark green, soft, balloony tops — 
w'hat grand’mere would call bombe^ not gums or light- 
wood or myrtle, I am sure ; and — yes ! a whole tangle 
of foliage on a slope — a river bank, I think ; and I can 
follow its course for miles ! ” 

“ That’s the Murray,” explains George. “ And I say, 
look to the right, on this side of the river, the Victorian 
side, of course ; don’t you see anything else by this time? ” 

“ Wait a minute. I’m beginning to see a cluster of little 
roofs. First, though, there’s a whole collection of railed- 
in enclosures.” 

“The sheep-yards,” says George ; “and back from them, 
do you see that great long wooden building? that’s the 
shearing shed ; and nearly alongside of it — a queer old 
shanty, do you see? — that’s the accommodation hut.” 

“ Yes ; and oh, George ! what is it that looks like a 
giant swing — only there’s no swing in it — a sort of scaffold 
then, standing in one of the enclosures?” 

“ That ? oh, that’s where we kill the bullocks. Don’t 


154 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


turn up your eyes — you needn’t come to see it. There’s 
the forge right away there, and the place where we keep 
our stores ; that detached building’s the men’s huts 
Well, do you see the house ? ” 

“Not yet,” a little anxiously. 

“Can’t you make it out?” he says, laughing. “There’s 
the garden plain enough.” 

Yes, Pauline can see the garden ; an oblong piece 
of ground, fenced in all round by wood-work,, f^urze- 
bushes, and gum saplings. 

“Now you can see the roof, eh?” 

Yes ; she can see a low sloping roof covering a cottage 
built of wood. The front door opens on to a small 
verandah, and the verandah looks on the afore-mentioned 
narrow garden, bounded by the gum saplings. 

“I suppose there isn’t any view — exactly,” she asks, 
assuming an unsuccessful air of cheerful proprietary 
interest in the disposition of the Riibria dwelling. Her 
husband, however, ha^ never been accustomed to regard 
the place as open to criticism from an aesthetic point 
of view. He answers promptly — 

“ Well, there’s not much of a look-out, I suppose ; 
but it’s jolly snug, I tell you. Not half a bad crib 
inside either.” 

While he is speaking, they are drawing near enough 
to see such signs of active life as may be seen at any 
hour while it is light around an Australian station 
dwelling. While George is pointing out his stables 
and his loose-boxes — the various outbuildings that have 
grown up like new members of successive types, as 
improving conditions required them, Pauline is look- 
ing at the people and animals brought together by the 
sound of the buggy wheels. Of people she sees : a 
weather-beaten Scotchwoman, all kitchen apron and 
well-worn plaid square, pinned shawl-like across the 
shoulders; a swagman curiously looking round, in the 
act of walking off, with his blanket and quart-pot strapped 
up behind his neck; a station-hand in blue shirt and 
high riding-boots, butcher’s knife in hand ; a whity-brown 
boy, in feature resembling the weather-beaten Scotch- 
woman, puffing at the remnants in his father’s pipe. 
Of animals : four sheep-dogs, tumbling over each other 
towards the buggy; a large kangaroo dog, with curled- 


PA U LINENS HOME. 


155 


up tail, running in the same direction with leisurely 
dignity ; a domesticated sheep, unwieldy with the fat of 
a life exempt from care; a variety of less obtrusive but 
generally noisy dogs, foals, cows, calves, and chickens in 
the background. Of nondescripts (for, whether regarded 
as human beings or animals, Pauline thought them an 
equal libel on both) : two grovelling old black women, 
crouched against the fence in a position which must 
have originated the‘word “squatting.” 

Pauline has barely time to take in these details before 
the buggy comes to a halt. The evening sun is at its 
hottest — at least she will always associate with a cloud- 
less sky her first impressions of her new home. Against 
the bright deep blue overhead every object stands out 
as if asserting itself before her questioning gaze : large 
and small buildings, ranged round the yard like a grow- 
ing family of sheds — the great wood-heap in the middle, 
suggestive of a lifetime of firelight musings — the few 
straggling gums, throwing their meagre shadows on the 
sandy soil. Now the buggy has pulled up at last, near 
the back entrance to the house, and George stands up 
in it, with a “ Hi — hillo ! ” as he throws the reins to 
the whity-brown boy and the station-hand in waiting. 

“And how’s yourself, Mrs. McClosky?” he says jocu- 
larly, looking down from the buggy on the hard-featured 
Scotchwoman below ; “ how’s the world been using you 
since I went away, eh ? I’ve not been for nothing, 
have I? I’ve fetched you home a mistress, you see.” 

“An’ ye should ha’ gien me word, Mester Drafton,” 
replies Mrs. McClosky, in a loud aggrieved voice, while 
George gets out and jumps his wife to the ground; “it’s 
na mair than I was expectin’.” Then turning to Pauline 
and holding out a hand hard as her face, “I bid ye 
welcome, Mrs. Drafton ! ” 

“Thank you,” says Pauline, absurdly embarrassed in 
presence of her servant. 

Taking into account the expression of the two women 
at this first interview, the chances of submission are de- 
cidedly in favour of Pauline. To George this is a 
true home-coming, to Pauline an experience that she does 
not dare as yet to analyse. 

The lithe kangaroo -dog, more effusive than Mrs. 
McClosky, seems to embrace his master as he stands 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


156 

on his hind fe6t scrabbling with his two forepaws on 
George’s waistcoat in the effort to reach his shoulders. 

“ Just look at him, Pauline ! ” says George, returning 
the dog’s caress. “This is Veno, dear old Veno — the 
finest dog in the district. Come on, Veno ! we’ll show 
your missis the house.” 

He turns into the house, and leads Pauline up the 
narrow passage running straight through it from the front 
to the back door. Its walls are adorned with slate- 
coloured horses, as full-chested as pouter pigeons, pranc- 
ing on a buff ground. Througli the front door that 
George throws wide open Pauline can see out into the 
little wooden verandah and the narrow garden, shaped 
like a parallelogram, in front. There are figrtrees 
along the path, and thyme borders round the beds. 
This is all she can see at a first glance, the gum 
saplings hiding even the far-stretching plain from her view. 

The house at Rubria had been built by Mr. Carp as a 
matter of necessity and it was grudgingly built, because 
Josiah was never likely to err on the side of liberality. 

But in George’s eyes it was “ home,” and we see our homes 
as we see our relatives, through a medium of our own. 

Pauline feels that some comment is expected of her 
as her husband shows her the different rooms. 

“See here, now,” he begins, opening a door on the 
left hand side of the entrance door, “what do you think 
of that for a front parlour and sitting-room, eh?” 

“ It’s very nice,” answers Pauline faintly, wondering 
within herself what possible transformation of herself or 
the room can ever give it a home-like, familiar aspect. 
The paper is apparently covered all over with a perplexing 
arrangement of brick and rhubarb-coloured watch-pockets. 
A round table seems to have taken root in the exact 
centre of a new green carpet. A dozen stiff chairs, 
looking as if they had set out by common consent from 
precisely measured distances and stopped simultaneously 
half-way, are ranged round it with mathematical exacti- 
tude. The new piano that Pauline chose in town stands 
in a shallow recess near the fireplace, balanced on the 
other side by a highly varnished bookcase. Over the 
mantelpiece rests a square pier-glass, engaged in a per- 
petual exchange of bows with an oleograph picture oppo- 
site. The inspection of this room is soon over. 


PA U LINE’S HOME, 


157 


“Now for my little den,” says George, opening the 
door on the other side of the passage and drawing Pauline 
into a small square- room, half office, half dining-room. 
The station account-books lie piled on a side table with 
specimens of wool, “ washed ” and “ greasy.” Double- 
barrelled guns, stockwhips, riding whips, two or three 
native spears, bits, sporfing journals, turf registers, all seem 
to have found their nooks in this, his favourite retreat. 

“ But wait till you’ve seen our room,” continues George, 
leading the way with the air of a man who has kept his 
trump card to the last. 

He throws open the room behind his sanctum, watch- 
ing for Pauline’s approval the while. 

Pauline does not know whether to laugh or to cry as 
he points out his purchases : the towering gilt bedstead, 
so majestic in size as to suggest the idea that the little 
room must have been built round it, as temples are 
built round heaven-sent gifts ; the costly wardrobe ; the 
pier-glass before which his wife must try on her dresses 
for his approval, when he is going to take her to the 
township. But Pauline sees her pile of trunks against the 
wall, and seeing them, is fain to turn her head awa,y. 

George, on his side, is in such overweening spirits that with 
one spring he perches himself on the topmost trunk of all. 

“ Don’t bother with any of your things to-night,” he 
says, thinking his wife looks rather paler than usual, and 
attributing it to fatigue. “I only wish you’d take off that 
grandmother’s gown,” looking disapprovingly down from 
his height at the sombre travelling dress she is wearing. 
“ Put ^on something with a colour, for goodness’ sake. 
That chattering Pulver’s been blowing about you in the 
kitchen like anything, I know. I just want to take you 
round the place and let the people here have a stare at 
you. Then they’ll be satisfied. Now don’t say, ‘ Won’t 
I do as I am, George? ’'for I know it’s on the tip of your 
tongue ; isn’t it now ? ” 

“ No indeed,” she replies, assuming an air of simplicity. 
“ I’ll put on mv ball-dress if you like, and my bridal 
bonnet, and walk up* and down in front of those old 
black women outside. Then I’ll come in and change, 
and parade before Pulver in my violet silk. Mrs. 
McClosky must be considered too. Do you know if 
she has a fancy for coiileiir de cuir ? ” 


158 


"In her earliest youth. 


“ I don’t like that sort of chafif, I tell you, Pauline,” 
says George, aggrieved. “If you don’t want to oblige 
me, say the word!” Then suddenly altering his tone as 
he jumps to the ground from his height, “ Don’t you 
know, my darling, I want all the world, high and low, 
to think as much of you as I do ? I’d have the whole 
lot of them at your feet if I could.” 

Whereupon a compromise was effected. Pauline dis- 
carded her sombre travelling-dress for the soft grey, with 
a parti-coloured scarf of George’s choosing. Then he took 
his wife on his arm and sallied forth with her on a tour 
of inspection. The yearling was frisking about near his 
stable. The sight of Pulver at the stable door, throwing 
out hay on a fork, renewed Pauline’s impressions of the 
morning with an intensity that almost resembled physical 
suffering. 

George was overflowing with good-will towards every one. 

“ All right, Pulver, eh ? ” he calls in a genial voice, 
on seeing the shock head at the stable door. 

“ Hearty, sir ] hearty ! ” responds the wheezy voice. 
The head makes a duck in George’s direction, and the 
small dull eyes fasten themselves on Pauline with the 
expression of dog-like devotion she remembers so well. 
Even on the Murray plains, after a day of unclouded 
sunshine, there is sometimes in the beginning of winter 
a chill wind towards evening. Such a breeze was rising 
now, and George and Pauline bent their steps to the house. 

To George it was an evening full of promise. He. 
gave the reins to his imagination, and saw a rose- 
coloured vista stretched before him. If he Yw-d had 
any misgivings on the score of marrying Pauline against 
her will, these misgivings gave him but little uneasiness' 
now the thing was done. He felt himself growing 
fonder of her every day. He. would make her grow 
fonder of him as well. There was the yearling, too. It 
surpassed his first estimate of it already. Witii ordinary 
luck (and why should he not have ordinary luck, like 
other men ?) a day must come -when he would see his 
colt, backed for something worth the winning, striding 
in front of all the others past the judge’s stand on the 
Flemington racecourse. Pauline, of course, would be 
standing next to him, for even the Melbourne Cup would 
mean nothing without her ; and he would see her dear 


PA ULINE'S HOME, 


159 


face smile as he rushed off to the saddling-paddock to 
enjoy a foretaste of the sweets of his triumph. Perhaps 
this moment of unclouded anticipation was one of the 
happiest of his life, but as he did not know it to be so, 
he believed himself to be only partially happy, with a 
prospect of complete bliss in store. When they reached 
the house, he saw his wife pass through the passage and 
step out into the narrow garden beyond, and he leaned 
against the door, watching her as she moved about 
among the thyme borders. 

‘•She’s beginning to take an interest in her home 
already, ’ thought George, far from conjecturing that her 
train of ideas could be so different from his. And all 
the time Pauline was saying to herself — 

“ How will it end — how will it end ? I am eighteen 
now, and terribly healthy ! I may have twice the 
length of years that I have lived already to live over 
again, and already I feel as if life were hardly worth 
the having ; as if every day would be too long, and the 
time would never pass away. Even my life is not my 

own now ! It has all been pledged to George.” She 

paused, and her husband smiled at her contemplation of 
the fig-trees. “ As if there were not enough to divide 
us already, I see a trouble shaping itself out in the 

future that I am not responsible for — for if my father 

is near me and in trouble, I must be there to help 

him at least, and George will want to know, and he 

must not know. For how much of the rest of my 

trouble am I responsible, I wonder? Not for so 

large a share after all. I warned George as much as 
I dared to warn him, and he would not listen ; and 
it has all come to pass, all that I dreaded so much. 
But now warnings are out of the question; and as to 
saying, ‘ I told you so ! ’ it would be useless and 

cruel. It would be poisoning George’s life to no pur- 
pose whatever. No ! there is nothing for it but 

to act a double part. If I could only smooth the 
way just at the outset ! If I could only make-believe 
to myself that I am here on a visit ! , It would be 
cowardly, but it would help me along. I need not 
limit the time of my visit, but I might think, ‘ Wnen 
it is over there will be such and such things to tell 

grand’uiere and Chubby.’ ” Another sto])page in her 


i6o IN- HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 

walk. She’s got housekeeping in her eye now!” 
reflects George, as he sees her looking down on the 
potato beds. “ No ! I’m a fool, and as grand’mere 
used to tell me, I want everything smooth. If I could 
only find comfort in thinking of the miserable people 
I used to fancy I pitied ; Fm sure there are miserable 
people enough to take comfort by. My misery is 
nothing to sickness and poverty after all. A senti- 
mental misery at best. An inability to give as much 
as I get. It would be worse the other way surely. 
Nobody knows. In time, this dreary cottage may 
seem as much my home as if it were dear, beautiful 
Beau-Sejour. And there is so much for me to do 
too. I must find out from grand’mere without delay 
what she knows about my father. And Pulver too I 
he reminds me of our old gardener. I know he is 
to be trusted. Perhaps he knows all about my relation- 
ship to the selector already.” 

Pondering thus, she has been walking towards the 
house, and now finds herself face to face with George. 

“ I’ll make them put a fire in my little snuggery,” 
he said. “Come in, my darling, and teil Mrs. McClosky 
to hurry up with the tea. I’m jolly hungry, I tell you ! 
To think I’ve got you at last I ’Pon my word, Pauline, 
I never seem to have believed it altogether till now.” 

“ Well, I’m not quite a person to be overlooked,” 
she replied, with an attempt at the old sprightliness; 
“ I almost fill up the passage as it is.” 

“You fill up my heart, darling,” said her husband, 
“that’s what you do, and what you’ll do too as long 
as I live.” 

The McClosky now announced tea with grim severity. 
Slie had no notion of giving up the reins of manage- 
ment to this inexperienced young girl, as she had 
already found occasion to inform her husband in the 
kitchen. For McClosky was not without perception 
of the beautiful, above all when the beautiful was 
embodied in a young woman. He had delivered 
himself thus to his wife on the subject — 

“A bonnie white lass, and nane o’ yer fine toon 
leddies that canna speak ceevil to a mon I The mair 
fit for the bush, I’m thinking.” 

“The mair fit for skule, I’m thinkin’,” returned his 


PA ULINE^S HOME. 


i6i 


wife with asperity, rustling disdainfully past the simple 
McClosky with the teapot. 

There was a pile of papers lying on the tea-table. 

“ The English papers, you bet ! ” exclaimed George. 
“ I quite forgot what a lot of mails had come in since 
I went away. It’s not a good line reading all tea-time, 
and I’ll give it up now I’ve got you to look at. Hullo ! 
what are you staring at ? Why don’t you pour out tea ? ” 

“ I’m looking at the' court news,” says Pauline, forcing 
a laugh, and thrusting the home news down on her 
lap as she shovels unlimited lumps of sugar into George’s 
cup. 

The fact is, her eyes have caught a paragraph that 
has almost wrenched a scream from her lips. 

“ Guthrie Vyner,” runs the paragraph, “ lieutenant on 
board H.M.S. Bellona^ under arrest for striking his 
superior officer, has escaped from Malta on board a 
small fishing-craft. It is conjectured that his escape 
was connived at, and that he is gone to South America 
in a trader.” 


CHAPTER XV. 

A VISIT TO A SELECTION, 

“ Oh, 'for a lodge in some vast wilderness.” — COWPER. 

If as a child you have ever amused yourself by grow- 
ing a crop of mustard and cress upon a strip of moist 
flannel, and watched the tiny fibrous roots clinging to 
the flannel as they would have clung to Mother Earth, 
you will have seen in the physical an example of 
adaptation which has its counterpart in the moral 
world. It is not we ourselves who change with the 
changing conditions around us. The “Ego’’ recognises 
itself whether its visible incarnation be on a throne or 
the gallows. But outwardly we conform readily to new 
circumstances and surroundings. Mrs. Cophetua, you 
may be sure, at the end of a week trailed her gold- 
broidered gown with as good an air as if she had 
been accustomed to strut in a palace all the days of 
her life. The flower-loving Proserpine must have found 
life among the shades below durable after a short 
experience of them, or even that bullying domestic tyrant 
Jupiter could never have constrained her to pass six 
months in them, all the year round. As for the Sabine 
women, everybody knows what exemplary spouses they 
became, notwithstanding that they were transplanted 
without as much as a “ By your leave ! ” 

From all which it follows that, in course of time, 
Pauline conducted herself in the eyes of the watchful 
little world at Rubria very much as an ordinary young 
woman might have done who had not married in spite 
of her grandmother and in spite of herself, who liad 
not trembled at the approach of her wedding-day and 
let fall hot bitter tears when it was over — who had not 
promised her life in a moment of infatuation, putting 
her love, indeed, quite out of the question — but who 
bad^ on the contrary, been married with a flourish of 

162 


A VISIT TO A SELECTION. 163 

trumpets and a confident heart, and a blessed assurance 
that should her husband’s world turn out to be at the 
North Pole or at the bottom of a coal-pit, either North 
Pole or coal-pit would become henceforth her world 
and her resting-place too. But to pass with credit in 
the eyes of the watchful little world was not to pass 

with credit in her own. Pauline knew for the very 
best of reasons that she was Pauline still. Her trouble 
was neither to be coaxed nor scared nor argued away. 
Only it had become in a measure her “familiar,” and 
was less talkative and obtrusive at one season than at 
another. Sometimes she could pacify it by putting 
forth the whole of her energies in any particular 
direction. It was quiet while she was mastering a 

passage in or wondering what Carlyle was driving 

at in “ Sartor Resartus,” but it clamoured so much 

after any of these efforts that she ‘found no heart for 

them at last. She would never allow her fatniliar to 
thrust its society upon George. On the other hand, it 
hampered her sorely when she was writing to her 
grandmother or Chubby. She could not tell where or 
how it intruded itself, but there it was, making its 
influence felt “between the lines.” In vain she filled 
whole pages with elaborate descriptions of station life, 
drew funny pictures of her utter subserviency to the 
virile-minded Mrs. McClosky, sketched diabolical old 
black women, and yearlings with their heels in the air. 
at the end of her letters to Chubby — all this threw not 
one grain of dust into her grandmother’s eyes. Tilings 
were as madame had expected — no worsb, certainly. 
She abstained on her side from telling Pauline how 
entirely the light had gong.- out of her own life. There 
were moments of despondency in which she wondered 
whether she had actually suffered more when the way- 
ward Rosalie was hidden aw^ay under the earth than 
when she assisted on Pauline’s marriage-day at the 
burial of all her own hopes and desires concerning her. 
Madame, moreover, did not know all, for Pauline, who 
had never had a secret from her grandmother in her 
life, dared not betray the secret of her father’s presence 
at Rubria. This was the small cloud that sometimes 
obscured even the presence of the “familiar” itself. 
She had torn out the page in the “home news,” and 


164 


IN HER EAkLlEST YOUTH. 


felt confident that George knew nothing of her father’s 
disgrace. But George had come across a similar para- 
graph in the European mail, and shrinking from wound- 
ing his wife by the news, had thought himself clever 
in destroying the paper. Neither referred to the subject, 
and each believed the other to be in ignorance of it. 

“It’s a good job she 'didn’t see it,” thought George, 
after he had stared uncomfortably at the name of 
Guthrie Vyner in such connection. “ She doesn’t fret very 
much about the old man any way ; and she’s a jolly sight 
better off, thinking he’s cooked by the natives in the 
South Seas, or gone to the bottom of the sea, than to 
be told he’s sloped to get out of doing a sentence.” 

The idea of connecting his wife’s father with Mr. John 
Smith, the selector, never once occurred to George. He 
would as soon have supposed Mrs. McClosky to be his 
aunt. He admitted that the selector was a gentleman, 
and it 'would not have surprised him to find out that 
his name was not John Smith ; but every gentleman who 
selects on your station on the Murray, and takes the 
name of John Smith for convenience’ sake, is not neces- 
sarily your wife’s escaped father. 

After Pulver had left him, George had confided to Pauline 
that “ he did not think much of Master Pulver.” 

“But he did all you gave him to do very well, didn’t 
he, George?” she inquired, hoping for her father’s sake, 
that Pulver was a reliable friend. 

“That’s right enough,” demurred George; “but wliat did 
he want sneaking up to the house after I’d sacked him, and 
asking to see the young missis? — so McClosky told me.” 

“Did he do that?” she cried in a tone of alarm. 
“When?” 

“ When ! the very day after we came. Don’t you 
remember Smith’s cart was outside, and I brought him 
in to have a nip, and you wouldnk come out of your 
room to see him ? 

“ Yes, I remember ; and then you said they were both 
gone, didn’t you ? ” 

“ No ; I said Smith was off, and Pulver was hanging about 
the place as if he couldn’t make up his mind to leave it.” 

The thought flashed across Pauline’s mind like a 
sudden sharp pain that her father must have sent her 
a message by this man. George was referring to an 


A VISIT TO A SELECTION. 165 

event that had happened weeks ago. What if it were 
too late for her to do what her father wanted ? How sel- 
fish and apathetic she had been. She had been content 
to trust to a chance meeting with him, and the words 
had died in her mouth when she had framed a question 
to George. She was utterly ignorant of tiie penalty 
attached to Guthrie Vyner’s fault. Whether he might 
be discovered in Australia, and whether, on being dis- 
covered, he might be marched off and shut up in prison, 
were t'nemes of tormenting conjecture to her. It is 
true that her affection for her father was based upon 
instinct more than upon habit. She had heard her 
grandmother speak of him as “ un jeune etourdi” — 
and describe him as iiasty and impulsive. But he was 
her father, and in trouble — and she blamed herself 
bitterly for her cowardice, and for having trusted every 
morning that the day would bring some news of him 
or indicate how she was to act. She was at dinner 
while this conversation was going on ; a meal over 
the preparation of which Mrs. McClosky held jealous 
sway, scouting all Pauline’s well-meant efforts to oust 
the station teapot from the mid-day board. 

“ You never told me where Mr. Smith had settled,” 
said Pauline suddenly, when she thought George had 
applied himself in earnest to his mutton. 

“ Farther up the river ; didn’t I tell you ? They’ve got a 
water frontage, and not the worst bit of land either.. That 
Pulver’s a neat-handed chap. I’ll say that for him. I don’t 
fancy Smith can be so hard up either. Pulver , fixed up a 
very decent hut for the two of them. I think he’s the real 
boss, mind you, between ourselves.” 

“ Couldn’t we ride round that way some day 7 ” Pauline 
asked diffidently ; “ I have such hazy ideas about that sort 
of bush life. I don’t know what people begin by doing 
when they find themselves with three hundred and twenty 
acres of earth and a kitchen table to start with.” 

“ You were foggy enough about this sort of life at 
the start, my darling,” replied her husband, attacking the 
mutton afresh. “ I don’t believe you could tell me 
half what a squatter’s got to look after now ! ” 

“ Oh yes, I could — at least I have a very fair idea 
of it. He must abuse the weather unremittingly every 
day to begin with, and say that every one will be ‘up 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


1 66 

a tree’ — I think that’s the expression — unless there’s rain. 
He must keep tally when the sheep are being counted 
or draughted, I’m not sure which, and swear — no, he 
needn’t swear — when they get boxed. He picks them 
out for market too, doesn’t he? and some days he jumps 
on and off his horse all day, and rides about his fences, 
and talks to his men about fat sheep and store sheep, 
and ploughing and killing ! You think I don’t listen, 
... I know, when we’re out on the run. Oh, and then at 
home, if he isn’t breaking in horses, or talking about 
politics or the drought to a neighbour squatter, he pets 
his dogs, or reads the paper, or sits with his feet in the 
air, singing ‘ Tommy Dodd.’ ” 

“ That’s not quite a true bill, when your squatter’s got 
a wife to look at like you ; eh, my old woman ? ” 

“Of course,” continued Pauline, ignoring the interrup- 
tion, “ I’m not taking hunting or shooting into account.” 

“ No, nor lots of things besides. Precious little a 
station would bring in if a man had nothing to do but 
what you give him credit for ! Well, that’s settled. 
We’ll ride round by the selection this afternoon, and 
if you like we’ll go kangarooing to-morrow, and take 
Veno and the pups ; we’re bound to drop across some 
kangaroo ; and I say, when you’ve done your pudding, 
come up and have a look at the colt. I never saw 
such a coat as he’s getting. He’s a regular beauty. If 
we donT pull off a Melbourne Cup with him my name 
isn’t George Drafton. I’m going to call him Victory, 
I think, for I’ve made up my mind he’s to win.” 

“ Would you be dreadfully, awfully disappointed if he 
didn’t come up to your expectations, George ? It makes me 
afraid to see you reckoning so much upon it beforehand.” 

“ Don’t croak, for the Lord’s sake, Pauline ! It’ll be 
a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence, that’s what 
it’ll be. I can see plain enough what this drought’s 
bringing us to. There’s universal ruin staring us in 
the face, my dear, take my word for it.” 

“O George!” Pauline exclaimed, no shadow of dis- 
composure crossing her face. 

Minds ill at ease hail a revolution, domestic or other- 
wise. Pauline thought her familiar might become moie 
manageable if they were turned out of Rubria — George 
to break stones along the road,, she to live like tne 


A VISIT TO A SELECTION. 


167 


women she had seen on her journey, in a canvas tent, 
cooking his dinner beyond reach of Mrs. McClosky’s 
criticism. Universal ruin would mean, on the other 
hand, the loss of her black horse. Pauline thought 
less hopefully of the drought an hour later, while riding 
along the track near the river with George. Though the 
ground below them was white with dust, though all 
around the earth was cracked as if it had opened a 
thousand gaping lips for moisture, the air from the water 
was still pure and pleasant to breathe ; though blackened 
stumps, and dead, grey gums stretching their withered 
arms aloft, made fit adornment for such a setting as the 
naked earth, there were still at distant intervals lightwoods 
and myrtles, round and stately in outline. There were 
still the river banks, luxurious in dark scrub ; the noisy 
parrots, red and blue and gold and green ; the bright 
yellow lustre of the declining sun, the fragrant aroma 
of the peppermint trees. What if she could be content 
with a little less — could feel that to be young and strong, 
and mounted on a horse that swung her along in such 
elastic fashion, was happiness enough for a day? She 
might tutor herself after all into resignation and cheer- 
fulness. In the first place, she must see her father, and 
persuade him to trust in George as well as in her. There 
would be one bugbear removed to begin with. She 
could not tell how much of peace might follow. 

While Pauline was talking down her familiar after this 
fashion, George was improving upon the original “Tommy 
Dodd in a shrill falsetto. “Tommy Dodd is sure to win. 
Tommy Dodd ! Tommy Dodd ! ” The parrots shrieked 
in chorus, and the familiar woke up to listen. George 
looked steadfastly, now and then, at the figure by his 
side. The clear pale face and throat, so softly white 
against the universal black of habit, and hat, and horse, 
the dark eyes, so wistful and subdued of late, the sweep 
of closely-packed hair from the temple to the nape, 
made a picture that he devoured with his eyes. The 
barren dreariness of his life, before Pauline shared it 
with him, struck him as he looked. His thoughts reverted 
to his courting days, and he remembered another ride 
before he was married. He shuddered at the recollection 
of the torturing fears that had assailed him in those 
days of uncertain happiness. 


i68 


7N HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


“ Do you know, my darling,” he said suddenly, “ I was 
thinking what a life you led me before we were married. I 
was never sure of you from one day to another. You never 
‘cheek ’ me now, do you? You seem to have shaken into 
place in no time.” 

“ Yes,” Pauline replied, with a smile, but it was a 
smile so indefinable in its signification, that even George 
felt there was something not entirely satisfactory about 
it, and that such a smile must be followed up. 

“You look so queer, my old woman, as much as to 
tell me you know a devil of a lot that I don’t know. 
Isn’t it true what I’ve been saying, eh ? ” 

“Of course,” answered Pauline hurriedly; she was 
wrestling with her familiar, not with George. “ What is 
truth after all? Whatever you believe is truth to you, 
isn’t it? Our truths may be ever so different, I know, 
but they’re truth to each of us all the same.” 

Some impulse to escape took unaccountable posses- 
sion of Pauline’s horse at this moment. He shook his 
head, and dij^ped it impatiently forward. George could 
see him flinging his hoofs into the air a minute later 
arid sweeping across the plain as if he were running 
a race. George did not feel quite at ease as he saw 
Pauline’s habit bulging in the wind. He urged his 
own bay mare into a gallop, cogitating on the causes 
of this sudden freak. 

“ What’s up now ? ” he thought. “ Did I put her on 
her mettle by telling her she’d got 'so quiet ? She was 
off in no time ; but what on earth did I say that could 
have riled her? that’s what I’d like to know.” 

Neither of the horses came to a halt until the selector’s 
hut was in sight. George only came up \yith Pauline 
after she had reined in, and was trying to coax Mulatto 
into a walk. Fired with his gallop, the animal arched 
his crest and quivered to begin again. 

“ That was a good spin ! ” said George, willing to avoid . 
all abstract discussions on the nature of truth. “We’ve 
got the horses into a nice state, and it’s given you a 
colour like a pink rose. Just look what a lather 
they’re in.” 

Pauline was greatly relieved to know that she was 
flushed. Her husband would probably attribute her 
agitation to the gallop, and she was now close to her 


A VISIT TO A SELECTION. 169 

father’s dwelling. The selector’s hut, as could be seen 
from the outside, consisted only of a single room built 
of slabs of seasoned wood. Pauline could see the very 
faintest appearance of smoke drifting with the passing 
current of air above the rough projecting chimney that 
flanked the hut. 

It would have been hard to conceive a more desolate 
situation. The parched plain stretched all round it, 
unbroken in its dingy level, save for the dingy gums 
and the dingier post and rail fences. The line of river 
bank, covered in places, as Pauline had seen, by darkly 
shaded evergreens, was here bare and unpromising. 
Reeds, so split and frayed that one would suppose 
they had been tearing each other to pieces, shook their 
melancholy, heads over dried ferns and shrivelled scrub. 
“Poor father!” thought Pauline, “is it possible that all 
this time I have been thinking about myself, and com* 
miserating my own lot ? ” Her familiar had never seemed 
so ugly as now. She shamed it into silence as she rode 
on. George, as a practical man, was preparing to 
criticise Mr. Smith’s method of going to work. 

“ Awful poor country this, eh, Pauline ? I don’t 
understand these chaps at all. They come and squat 
down on a bit of land as bare as my hand, and. I 
don’t see that they’ve stocked it either. Look at all 
those farm implements round the house too 1 that’s all 
money thrown away. That Pulver’s a wonder, though, 
in some ways. Bless my soul if I don’t believe he’s 
ploughing over there I You might as well expect to 
get a crop off a mahogany table ! Come on, and I’ll 
give him a bit of advice.” 

•“No, I’ll wait for you here,” Pauline called to him, 
pulling up her horse almost in front of the selector’s 
hut, while George trotted off in the direction of Pulver. 
She could hardly believe that her chance had come at 
last. Her heart almost stopped beating as she bent 
forwards towards the rude doorway and called gently 
“ Father ! ” 

There was a scraping sound inside the hut. A tin 
pannikin rolled out of the doorway, followed by the 
tall figure of Mr. John Smith. Divested of his stout 
overcoat, and dressed only in moleskin trousers and 
Crimean shirt, he seemed to Pauline thinner and more 


170 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


wcrn than he had first appeared to her. The expression 
of his face was fretful and jaded, but the face itself 
asserted its close kinship with Pauline. The man might 
possibly be selfish, or violent, or shallow — he could not 
help looking like a gentleman. 

“Papa,” Pauline said, in pitiful tones, taking his out- 
stretched hand, all covered with flour — it was evident 
that Mr. John Smith had been making the damper 
— “ dear papa ! ” 

She could get no further for the break in her voice, and 
she had so much to say and so little time to say it in ! 

“There — there — my dear! don’t, now, don’t,” expostu- 
lated Mr. Smith, patting her hand, whereby he caused 
a whole showier of flour to disperse itself over the front 
of her black riding-skirt ; “ there’s no occasion for it, I 
assure you ! ” 

“Well, but, papa, what can I do for you? Will you 
be hurt ? ” 

The selector, looking up at her, saw such a world of 
tender anxiety shining out of her troubled eyes, that 
his own face softened in turn. 

“ You mustn’t alarm yourself about me in the very 
smallest degree,” he told her, resting his floury hand 
on her horse’s mane ; “ I shall have to hide away for a 
time — that’s all 1 ” 

“ Then, father, dear,” she cried eagerly, “ let me say 
who you are, I entreat you, only to George. It would be 
so much better. I can see you then, and be with you 
when I like. George will keep your secret, I know; 
and what can I do for you as it is? Nothing but grieve 
— and I do mind so very very much 1 ” 

Her father’s face grew gloomily determined. 

“ On no account, on no account whatever 1 ” He 
emphasised his refusal harshly, as it seemed to Pauline. 
“You will drive me away if you betray me. Your 
husband may be a very worthy young man, but I have 
no claim upon him. I trust nobody. I will have 
nobody in my confidence; do you hear? With Pulver 
there it is another matter. 1 did him good service 
once on board the Musk. He chooses to return it in 
this way. As for you, Pauline, if you had not recognised 
me that morning I should never have troubled your 
life with my existence.” 


A VISIT TO A SELECTION. 


171 

“But as I do know, papa,” pleaded Pauline, “tell ' 
me now, quickly, how can I see you, and what can I 
do for you ? ” 

“ Forget that I am here, if you can,” said her father 
bitterly ; then, touched by the pain in her face, “ No, not 
that. I will send for you, I promise, if I want you. 
But you must run no risks. I am afraid as it is your 
iuisband will suspect something. Would you credit it ? 
Pulver declares he knew 5'ou for my child the very first 
time he saw you.” 

“Yes ! and papa, you nearly betrayed yourself by 
kissing me the other morning.” 

“ 1 couldn’t help it,” said her father, softening again ; 

“ it was such a shock — such a revelation — to find you 
lying there on the ground. I had fancied you still quite 
a little girl. Let me see, you must be seventeen or 
eighteen by this time. Dear, dear me ! Your grand- 
mother was always an eccentric woman, Pauline. One 
would have thought she had seen enough of youthful 
marriages in the family ! ” he smiled rather bitterly. 

“ Your mother made a love-match, too.” 

“ Oh ! it isn’t a love-match,” Pauline said hastily — 
unthinkingly. 

“ Good heavens ! what do you mean ? ” exclaimed her 
father. “ Who could have forced you into it ? ” 

“ Oh nobody — nothing ! ” stammered Pauline, over- 
whelmed with confusion. “ I mean, grand’mbre was 
against it.” 

“You might have waited, then,” said her father 
doubtfully. He was trying to r^nember what Rosalie 
was like in those early bridal days, when he would have 
committed any extravagance to gratify her smallest 
caprice. Thinking of her more impartially now, across 
the eighteen years that, had severed him from her, he 
was obliged to admit that Pauline was a fairer woman 
than her mother. 

“I had promised Mr. Drafton. He is very good to 
me; I am getting used to him, papa. Look, he is 
coming 1 ” 

When George tiotted up to the hut, he found Mr. 
Smith standing in the doorway with his hat off, Pauline 
sitting suff in her saddle, apparently at a loss to find 
anything more to say to hinu 


172 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


“ Good day, Mr. Smith ! ” said George, extending his 
hand; “IVe been telling Pulver how he’d better work 
the place if he wants to make it pay. I don’t see much 
show for any of us though, if this sort of weather’s 
to last much longer. We’re over-stocked here, you see, 
as it is. It’s a poor look-out for any one commencing 
this game just now ! ” 

“ Yes, fate isn’t propitious, I’m afraid ! ” sighed the 
selector, leading George to infer that a good shower 
of rain would wash out all his grievances. “ Can’t I 
induce you to come inside for a minute ? ” 

“Come, Pauline,” said her husband; “you said you 
wanted to know all about it at dinner-time.” 

He was on the ground in an instant, and ready to 
lift her down. 

“Why, what on earth have you been doing with your- 
self? You’re all over white in front!” 

“Am I? I don’t know!” she stammered. 

A less acute eye than George’s could hardly have 
failed to detect her confusion. His face grew dark with 
an expression Pauline had never seen before. She 
could hardly refrain from trembling as he lifted her to 
the ground, and made way for her to precede him into 
the selector’s hut, while he tied up the horses outside. 

Let those who make a boast of the tidiness of women 
learn what is meant by the tidiness of sailors. A 
lieutenant’s cabin is a puzzle to a landsman. He sees 
the puzzle complete ; he could not put it together. But 
long experience of “Mountain billows to the clouds, in 
dreadful tumult swelled,” as Thomson says, probably 
before he had had any experience of the sea whatever, 
has given to sailors a key to the puzzle which landsmen 
cannot use. They know how to have things ship-shape, 
taking thereby a lesson from Nature, for the “right thing 
in the right place” is Nature’s constant aim, no matter 
how many victims must be shovelled out of the way 
to attain it. An ordinary selector’s hut would not have 
borne the impress of fingers accustomed to lashing 
objects into their places. The floor of beaten earth 
was smooth and level. It was covered in places with 
tiger and leopard skins, which gave it an aspect of 
barbaric magnificence rather than of rough poverty. 
The kitchen table — all that Pauline had already seen ot 


A VISIT TO A SELECTION. 


173 


the contents of the selector’s cart — stood fair in t!ic 
middle of the room, white as the deck of an ocean 
steamer ; on one corner of it stood a panful of half- 
kneaded dough. The “Lares and Penates” assumed 
in Mr. John Smith’s hut the homely forms of a camp- 
oven, a great pot, a tin billy, and a gridiron. Judging 
from their shiny exterior they must have been accustomed 
to reverence, as conveyed in a treatment of soap and 
sand. Across the camp bedstead and stretched on 
opposite sides of the room, coloured blankets and rugs 
were hung with precision. A cane arm-chair, and a 
chest, two empty cases placed laterally one on the other, 
doing duty for butler’s pantry, library, and secretary, made 
up the furniture. George found himself immediately 
at home on the unoccupied corner of the table. The 
selector brought forward the arm-chair for Pauline, who, 
turning her face towards the fire that her husband might 
not see it, allowed it to scorch steadily as a screen for 
her heightened colour. 

“’Pon my word,” said George, looking round him, 
and swinging one leg backwards and forwards under 
the table as he was speaking, “you seem to have a 
pretty considerable idea of making things comfortable, 
Mr. Smith ! Fine tiger-skin that over there ! Been 
to Africa in your time, 1 expect ? ” 

Mr. Smith hesitated for an instant before replying. 

“Yes; well, not exactly, if by going to Africa you 
mean going into the interior. I’ve been to the Cape 
once or twice.” 

“ Ah ! ” said George ; “ been in the navy at all ? ” 

Mr. Smith turned suddenly round at this point-blank 
question — he had been standing with his back to the 
fire, facing George — and poked at the burning logs of 
wood with his foot. 

“I’m afraid the heat is too much for Mrs. Drafton. 
Let me get you a book to serve as a screen,” he said, 
turning to Pauline. 

He bustled across to one of the cases for a book, 
and laid hands at the same time on a whisky-bottle and 
a tumbler. 

“ I’ve nothing else to offer you, Mr. Drafton,” he 
said, dipping a jug into a bucket of water under the; 
table, and handing it to George. 


174 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


“Best drink going, too,” replied George, taking up the 
bottle. “You were saying you’d been to the Cape, I 
think?” 

“Yes; was I?” said the selector, turning for the 
second time to Pauline. “ I wish I could prevail on 
Mrs. Drafton to take something. A cup of tea, now? 
Let me make you a cup of tea.” 

“ No, no, thank you ! ” Pauline said, rising from her 
chair and gathering her long habit under her arm. 
“We’d better go, if George — if Mr. Drafton is ready. 
It gets dark so soon.” 

She spoke so hurriedly — the words were uttered so 
despondently, that George again looked sharply into her 
face. 

“ I’ll be off as soon as you like,” — he finished his 
whisky and water at a gulp. “You’ll tell Pulver, Mr. 
Smith, I can let him have that harrow when he wants 
it. He seems to be a first-rate working chap. You’ve 
known him before, he tells me.” 

“Oh, I’ve known Pulver a long time,” answered the 
selector ambiguously. 

“ Good day, Mrs. Drafton — good day to you, Mr. 
Drafton ! ” 

In reaching across for his hat his floury sleeve at- 
tracted George’s attention for the first time, but no 
remark was made, and a moment later he could hear 
the thud of the horses’ retreating footsteps becoming 
fainter and more faint in the distance. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


fVHAT GEORGE BROUGHT AWAY FROM THE 
SELECTOR'S HUT. 

“ Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy ; 

It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock 
The meat it feeds on.” 

— Shakspere. 

Pauline liked the Murray plains better under the even- 
ing than the morning sky. In the absence of clouds — 
and during this period of drought there were hardly 
any clouds to be seen — the wavy lines and ripples of 
unshaded gold and red lay close against the pale blue 
background, like streaks of paint, undisturbed by any 
wandering flakes of colour; the blackened stumps, the 
brown grass, the straggling fences, were all blurred into 
a warm uniform grey. Against the flame-coloured horizon, 
the spaces between tlie gums and she-oaks seemed full 
of fire. The crickets clamoured underground as if they 
were directing all the subterraneous machinery in the 
world, and the parrots screeched overhead in defiance of 
them. But every sound fell unheeded on Pauline’s ear 
to-night. That an explosion of some sort was imi)end- 
ing she felt instinctivel)^, unreasonably assured. She 
could feel it in George’s demeanour during the home- 
ward ride — in his regulation of his horse’s paces with- 
out regard to hers — in his unusual and ominous silence. 
It was almost dark when they reached the homestead ; 
the kitchen lamp, the lantern in the stable, the candle 
in the men’s hut, all threw out their separate feeble 
streams of light, giving to Rubria the appearance of an 
infant settlement. The sound of the horses’ feet was 
always a signal for the dogs at the station to break 
into tumultuous barking. They rushed out in a noisy 
horde, snai)ping at eacli other’s tails and ears, wolf-like, 
until assured of the character of the visitors. Pauline 
had learnt to distinguish between the loud angry bark 

175 


176 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


of inquiry, the modified bark of half-recognition, and 
the yapping bark of welcome. She had learnt, too, to 
give George at least five minutes’ patient waiting until 
Veno, Pepper. Lassie, Echo, and half a dozen others, 
had each received his due share of fondling or scolding, 
as the case might be. She knew that George must be 
embraced by Veno, and must institute a howling duet 
with Pepper, while Lassie and Swift wrangled round hjs 
knees. She looked upon it to-night as a portentous 
sign that George on dismounting distributed a kick 
among the disconcerted group of dogs. “Get out, you 
noisy brutes'!” he said. “We must get rid of some of 
these curs, Alexander; do you hear?” he turned sharply 
upon the whity-brown hope of the uncompromising Mrs. 
McClosky. “Take the horses up to the stable, and give 
*em some water the first thing.” 

George’s former sanctum was now used as a breakfast 
parlour and dining-room. Here, on chilly nights, the 
great wood-fire brightened and heated the little room. 
Here, during the long winter evenings of this month of 
June, George and Pauline used to sit on either side of 
the fireplace. Pauline liked to come into it from the 
dark outside, before the lamp was lighted, and watch 
the long worms of fire creeping about the glowing logs. 
She liked to see the wood ashes all lying in a state of 
incandescence. When the light came in, the ashes would 
turn to a dirty white, and the fiery worms would cease 
to frolic round the charred stumps. 

This evening she was longer than usual in taking off 
her habit, being filled with a foreboding she could not 
dispel. There was nothing to reassure her when at last 
she gathered courage to enter the little parlour. 

George was sitting in his arm-chair in the dark room, 
moodily looking into the wood fire before him. Pauline 
came and stood near him, with her elbow leaning on 
the low mantelshelf. He looked gloomily up at her 
pale expectant face. He was not given to studying 
the effects of light and shade, but he could not help 
noticing the transparency of tint thrown upon her skin 
by the reflection of the flickering flames. He noticed, 
too, .with a different sort of sensation, that there was a 
half guilty look of nervous apprehension in the expres- 
sion of the dark eyes. 


THE SELECTOR'S HUT. 


177 


Pauline was beginning to feel the oppression of the 
silence almost unendurable. 

“Shall we have tea, George?” in a conciliatory tone. 
“ Shall I ring for Mrs. McClosky and tell her to bring in 
the lamp?” 

Her attempt to talk iinconstrainedly was a failure. 
People do fail, as a rule, when they try to be at ease. 
The very term, to try to be at ease, carries a contradic- 
tion on the face of it. 

“No! I don’t want the lamp. Much good the lamp’ll 
do me.” 

He leaned his elbows on his knees, and kept his face 
covered with his hands. 

“What is the matter, George?” Pauline could be 
braver now that the action might be said to have com- 
menced. “ If you don’t explain how am I to know? Tell 
me, have you got a headache?” 

“ By the Lord ! ” said George, suddenly looking up, 
and seizing her fiercely by the two wrists, “ I believe some- 
times I haven’t made you out yet. I took it into my 
head you were the veriest sucking dove I ever came 
across. If I thought different ” 

His hold on her wrists had become such a grip of iron 
that Pauline seemed to feel the bones shrinking under the 
pressure. She could not withhold a gasp of pain. 

“You’re hurting me, George, so much. 1 can’t speak 
while you’re hurting me so. Let go my wrists, and I’ll 
speak.” 

“I’ll let them go when you’ve answered me, not before. 
I’ve never had but one opinion of you till now ; but if I 
thought you were up to any underhand sort of game, I’d 
make it the worse for you, if I had to shoot myself for 
it afterwards ! ” 

“ What do you mean ? ” she whispered, her lips becom- 
ing white as she spoke. 

“ This is what I mean I ” he said. Always retaining 
his grasp of her wrists, he pulled her on to her knees 
before him, and looked closely at her eyes, dilated with 
terror. “Will you tell me you never saw that man 
before ? ” 

She shrank from him a little before replying, “ What 
man ? ” 

“ What man I ” he repeated, with so contemptuous a 

M 


178 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


ring in his voice that Pauline winced under it even 
more than under the grip ; “ I think you’re a liar after 
all! Well?” 

“ Yes ; ” he saw her lips form the word, but no sound 
came from them. 

“ Where ? ” unconsciously he was tightening his grasp. 

“ That morning, of course — on the plains.” 

She said it doggedly. Her first impulse had been to 
cry out, “ Oh, George, he is my father, and in trouble 1 ” 
— upon which George would have found himself in an 
agony of pity and contrition, and would have guarded 
the secret every bit as jealously as Pauline herself. But 
George, by his violence, was defeating his own ends. 
The next impulse was to keep her word to her father 
at any cost, and to prove to her own satisfaction and 
to George’s that nothing should be wrenched out of her 
by such means as these. 

“Only on the plains,” said George, loosening his hold 
and looking his hardest at her face. “ Pm not such a 
chump of wood as you take me for. What did he take 
your hand for. and cover you with flour, when I wasn’t 
in the road ? and why did you seem as if you didn’t 
know which way to look when you were sitting in his 
chair there by the fire ? Why didn’t he give me a 
straightforward answer when I asked him where he’d 
been ? Tell me that, if you can I ” 

“I don’t know anything,” said Pauline, pulling away 
her hands, and moving towards the bell ; “ I only know 
you’re both foolish and cruel.” 

“ Good heavens ! ” cried George, following her, “ you 
know if Pm mistaken Pd kneel at your feet. There’s 
nothing I wouldn’t do, Pauline! I can’t tell you how 
miserable I was all the time we were riding back — putting 
two and two together, and thinking of that cursed dream 
— I was nearly mad, I tell you ! I won’t ask you to 
forgive me, darling, if Pve been wrong. But why should 
you even flirt with the fellow in a sort of way? It 

would be almost as bad to have you do a thing of that 

sort. I think Pm an unlucky wretch, whichever way 

I look at it ; and I was so happy too ! ” 

He turned away, and his tone of utter dejection 
moved Pauline more than his anger. She found her 
voice hard to control as she tried to explain. 


THE SELECTOR’S HUT. 


179 


“I never knew you were like that, George. Can't 
you trust me? Would you believe the least appearance 
against me?” 

“No!” he answered, turning towards her again. 
“Not if it had been all square when we married. But 
I know you only gave me half your heart, if you gave 
me that, and of course”- 

“Whatever I gave you,” she interrupted quickly, -‘is 
consecrated to you. If you treat me so again, I shall 
be afraid to live with you ! ” 

“I believe I’m mad,” said George, beginning to 
recover himself. “ I never want to feel that way again. 
Only I’d advise Master John Smith, or whatever he 
may choose to call himself, to give me a wide bertii lor 
the future.” 

George went out immediately after tea. Even now 
the fears prompted by his jealous demon were only 
half allayed. Pauline knew that he was taking the lantern 
up to the stables, and imagined that he must be 
solacing himself with the contemplation of the colt. 
She was left all alone in colloquy with her familiar 
and her bruised and swollen wrists. The station lamp 
burned badly, and she had no heart for reading. The 
uncertain light thrown out by the smouldering logs of 
red gum illuminated capriciously the different parts 
of the room. Sometimes throwing into deep shadow 
every object save Pauline herself, it crept up her 
grey dress, played inquisitively over her listless hands, 
ran along her profile in a strange white line. After 
bringing out her silhouette into strong relief it shot a 
sudden beam upon the opposite wall. The guns and 
native spears, an ancient tomahawk, a boomerang, and 
a waddy, ranged on projecting nails all over it, started 
into sudden prominence. Pauline thought curiously of 
the work done by the waddy before it had taken up 
its position upon the w'cather-stained walls of the 
Rubria homestead. Recalcitrant “gins” must have had 
little scope for expostulation after an admonishing tap 
from its butt end. Were* savages ^often jealous? she 
wondered. As arraigned before her own conscience, 
not before George’s, how did she stand ? She had told 
the truth in the spirit if not in the letter. A Jesuit would 
have assured her that she had spoken the literal truth 


i8o IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 

She had never seen “ Mr. Smith ” more than once 
before. Guthrie Vyner was not Mr. Smith. In the 
sense moreover in which George had taken alarm, Pauline 
might contradict him with entire truthfulness. She 
would like to do whatever was right, but the right of 
late had seemed a thousand times more complicated th^n 
when she was at Beau-Sejour ! At one minute she 
bowed her head in humiliation beyond endurance at 
the recollection of George’s fierce suspicions, at another 
she remembered he had a cause for them, or believed 
he had a cause, which was tantamount to having one 
really. He had left her presence that evening with a 
worried, desperate look, such a look as she remembered 
on the face of a picture in her grandmother’s drawing- 
room. The picture represented Charles IX. on the eve 
of the massacre of St. Bartholomew ; not bloodthirsty, 
yet harassed, gloomy, full of forebodings of the tortures 
that his remorse would bring upon him later. Pauline 
would stoop to reassure George on his coming in again. 
Then she must find means of letting her father know 
the trouble to which she was exposed on his account. 
Of course he would make things clear. 

“ If grand’mere only knew ! ” thought the poor child, 
the tears starting into her eyes at the sudden yearning 
for the shelter of those comforting arms. Somewhere 
away in the blackness of the night, a distant curlew gave 
out its long wailing cry. Mrs. McClosky, in the kitchen 
outside, was upbraiding the patient McClosky in energetic 
Scotch. Pauline could not believe that only a few 
months back she had been sitting in the haven of Beau- 
Sejour, unthinking of a world beyond it. What social 
])roblems had she not dared to discuss with madame? 
What schemes, that if carried out, should have elevated 
all humanity at a jump ? She, who had not fathomed — 
who did not as yet comprehend one single passion of 
the human heart ! She felt older now than Madame 
Delaunay herself. Well, the comforting reflection after 
all remained — Chubby was safe ! It was the strongest 
proof of Pauline’s Ipve for the child that no desolation, 
no disappointment, could make her feel that the sacrifice, 
had it been necessary, was too great for the gain. As 
to its necessity, her familiar might suggest doubts and mis- 
givings, might remind her of her grandmother’s appeals, 


THE SELECTOR'S HUT. 


i8i 

bat could not take from her the conviction that Chubby’s 
bodily preservation was the paramount consideration. 

While she was thinking this her husband came in. 

“ George,” she said, putting out her hand, “ aren’t 
you sorry ? ” 

He kissed the hand, but made no answer. 

“ Do say something, George ! ” 

“ Either I’m a brute,” he said, “ and you mustn’t 
speak to me, or you’re too clever for me — that’s about 
it. God knows, I’d rather think I’m a brute.” 

“No! not a brute; only you jump at conclusions 
— rather ! I think that’s a privilege that ought to 
belong to me — not to you. You’re not going to develop 
into a jealous husband, George? A sort of scowling 
Bluebeard I You’re too fair for it. I can’t remember 
any jealous husband but Othello. You don’t look a 
bit like an Othello 1” 

“Oh yes,” said George, only half appeased, “you’re a 
fine one to chaff ; you wouldn’t be so ready with it if 
you knew what I’d been feeling all the evening ! ” 

“ Well, don’t feel it any more ! ” 

“ Do you suppose I feel it for my own pleasure ? ” 
he asked, kneeling on the hearthrug at her side and 
kissing her hands again. 

“ I'here’s nb occasion to feel it at all, as you know. 
Where have you been all this time?” 

“Thinking over things in the stable.” 

“ Looking at the colt, I suppose that means. Is he 
going on as you wish?” 

“ Oh, he’s fit ; but I wasn’t thinking much of the 
colt, I tell you.” 

“What race is he to run in, George?” 

“Well, I expect to enter him for the Melbourne Cup 
after the next. He’s only a youngster yet, you know, 
but take my tip for it, he’s a beauty ! ” 

“And if you lose? I don’t like to pretend to warn 
you, because I know so little about things of that sort, 
but I’ve always heard it costs so much to race horses. 
One hears about people with such heaps of money in 
England losing it all, and then people say ‘Oh, he 
went on the Turf; what can you expect?”’ 

“I’m going to take my chance about that. If I 
get a haul it’ll be worth all the risk. If I don’t, well, 


i 82 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


a few hundreds won’t make me or break me. I must 
do that or turn out of Rubria, one or the other.” 

“ Why, you’ve plenty of money, George ! ” 

“What I’ve got is all invested in the station. If we 
sold out now, I believe I’d be ruined. ’Pon my word, 
it’s enough to make one ill to ride over the place ; and 
I think this drought’ll last too. Well, we’ll all be in 
the same box, that’s one thing — euchred up, my dear ! — 
the whole lot of us.” 

“ Has it ever been like this before ? ” 

“No, not altogether. We’ve had our bad seasons, of 
course. Now, I tell you, out of fifty thousand sheep 
on this run, I’m bothered if there’ll be one left us at 
all before long at this rate.” 

“What would you do if we were ruined?” 

“Oh, I’d string on somehow until the old man gave 
us a lift. Yoii shall never want, my old woman, never 
fear! I’d do with a crust to keep you like a lady.” 
“Thank you, George ! but I think I could work too.” 

She is already concocting a plan by means of which 
ruin shall mean a little cottage close to Beau-S^jour. 
It would mean Beau-Sejour itself, only Pauline knows 
her husband would never live in the same house with 
her grandmother. Ruin shall bring Chubby to her 
side every day. The most cheerful aspect her familiar 
has ever worn, since she has been in the habit of 
carrying it off for the night, is on this particular 
evening when her husband has been threatening her 
with “ ruin.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 

JOSIAH COMBS TO RECONNOITRE. 

“ For villainie maketh villainie 
And by his deeds a chorl is seine.” — CHAUCER. 

The spirit of spring, so grudgingly welcomed by the 
unchanging Victorian landscape, was abroad on the 

Murray plains. Each and every member of the frowning 
Eucalyptus tribe repelled its timid caresses, but at Rubria 
the rose-bushes and fig-trees in the little - longitudinal 
garden greeted the advances of the emigrant with 
opening buds. If spring-time had not been so com- 
pletely run to earth by every poet from antiquity 

upwards, here would be a fitting occasion for dwelling 
upon the smiles with which Mother Earth encourages 
the renewal of physical life on her surface. But an 

Australian spring is not as the spring of Mrs. Hemans 
and Tennyson. Neither one nor the other would have 
been inspired to sing about “ the winds which tell 
of the violets’ birth ” or about “ pulses thronged with 
the fulness of the spring ” in Australia. 

Spring-time at Rubria, and a sun which chased 

Pauline indoors when George called her out to look 
at the colt. The only trace of spring, indeed, w^as 

to be seen in the lustre of Victory’s coat. Pauline 

liked to. stand under the shade of the back verandah 
and watch the metallic gleams that played about 

his neck and shoulders in the sunlight. It was sad 
to turn from the contemplation of the glancing rays 
that seemed to radiate from Victory’s shiny back to 
the contemplation of the scorched dead grass he was 
standing on. The eternal refrain that Pauline heard 

from morning until night was the drought, and nothing 
but the drought. Matters were beginning to look 
serious for the squatters. Pauline thought it a pity that 
after the sun, according to the latest theories extant, 

183 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


184 

had been at such pains to send out his rays and set 
all the wood tissues to work in the building up of 
such vegetation as there was — he should overdo the 
thing so completely for lack of a little moderation. She 
began to be of the same mind as the negro who preferred 
the moon, on the score of its being more useful than 
the sun — shining of a dark night, and not in the day- 
light, when it wasn’t wanted. 

That the sun wasn’t wanted on the Murray plains, 
people told each other daily and hourly. The w^hite 
squatter and the cofifee-coloured Chinese gardener made 
it each in his way the subject of a religious rite. Both 
were equally ready to do anything in reason in the 
way of propitiation. The Chinese to let off unlimited 
crackers, as being more calculated to excite attention 
up above ; the Europeans to forego beef and mutton for 
a whole day, and starve upon Murray cod. 

Josiah Carp, in his turn, called down maledictions on 
the weather as he read the country telegrams on his way 
from Wattle Villa to Melbourne in the train. It was a 
long time since he had made a condemnatory tour among 
his landed properties and stations. He sat in his cool 
office in Flinders Street one morning, and decided in his 
own mind that he would start for Rubria the very next 
day. He would so lay his plans that a letter announcing 
his arrival should reach his nephew the day after he had 
himself arrived. Thus he would secure the ends he had 
in view. He would discover whether Pauline had turned 
the homestead inside out — whether she carried about in 
the bush that air of innocent resignation which charac- 
terised her in town — whether George kept open house — 
whether he got on with his wife — whether he was keeping 
a racehorse — whether the interests of Messrs. Cavil & 
Carp were looked after with due regard to the well-being 
of the firm. 

These reflections imparted so much of sinister meaning 
to Josiah’s eyes, that a timorous clerk who had put his 
head through the half-open door pulled it away and con- 
cluded to put it in again at some later period of the day. 

. That he might the better carry out his contrivance, 
Josiah started the same evening instead of the next 
morning. It was his rule to take as little luggage as 
possible on these occasions, that his servants might expect 


JOSIAH COMES TO RECONNOITRE, 185 

him back the sooner. He told his coachman in getting 
out of his carriage at the Spencer Street station that he 
would be back in a couple of days. Then he stretched 
himself in comfort on the vacant side of a saloon carriage, 
discomposed an old lady opposite, who was comforting 
herself with pork sandwiciies in this early stage of the 
journey, by glaring at her as if she had come by them 
dishonestly, and finally snored himself to sleep. Half 
a night at Sandhurst and a halt at Echuca lengthened 
the trip considerably. It was not until the afternoon of 
the second day after his departure that Mr. Carp reached 
the little township of Rubria. 

A word about Rubria. It was typical of a hundred 
other insignificant Victorian townships, turned out after 
the same pattern. Be they the centres of mining or of 
squatting populations, all share in common a few promi- 
nent characteristics. An abnormally wide street — in the 
case of Rubria still in the embryo stage — lively, as a 
thoroughfare for bullock drays, geese, and travelling flocks 
of sheep. Buildings, mostly of wood, mostly without an 
upper storey, all equally protected by a verandah, ranged 
in the following order. Hotel — general store — black- 
smith’s shop — hotel — butcher’s shop — hotel — small post- 
office, grafted on to a depressed draper’s establishment — 
hotel — baker’s shop — hotel — hotel — hotel. It must be 
premised that every public-house, inn, beer shop, or gfog 
shanty, is called an hotel in Victoria. The principal 
hotel is generally the station for Cobb & Co’s, coaches, 
which jerk and rattle over the bush roads for hundreds 
of miles around. 

Josiah’s bones ached after eight hours’ bumping in one 
of these, despite the liberality of Nature in affording them 
so ample a covering. He dismounted laboriously at the 
door of the hotel, handed over his portmanteau to a 
w'aiter, and demanded that a buggy and man should be 
provided for him, that he might drive over at once to 
the homestead of Rubria. 

“ Very sorry, Mr. Carp,” said the man, shifting the 
portmanteau from one hand to the other — he was a bush 
waiter, and therefore didn’t say sir — “a party’s been and 
hired the buggy not an hour back. Didn’t say when 
he’d be back either.” 

Josiah scowled, and reflected that he would do the 


i86 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


distance on foot. It was only eight miles, and his walk* 
ing powers were his boast. He would walk off his stiff- 
ness; he would be the better able perhaps to make his 
observations. The upshot of it was that he started on 
foot. How he arrived, and how he disposed of his port- 
manteau, we shall presently see. 

It so happened that for the first time in her experience 
Pauline was alone at home that day. She had seen 
George start in the morning for a shepherd’s hut in a dis- 
tant part of the run ; he was not to return until dark — so 
it was understood — and Pauline, left to make the most of 
her isolation and her familiar, considered what she should 
do. So far she had never dared to unpack her box of 
relics and mementoes of her Beau-Sejour life. It occurred 
to her this morning that she would transform the dreary 
front parlour into a habitable room, and fill it -with objects 
which should evoke memories of Beau-Sejour and speak 
to her of her grandmother and Chubby at every turn. 

In good earnest she prepared to set to work, turning 
up her sleeves and baring her white arms, pinning a 
towel in nun-like fashion across her head and shoulders, 
and tucking up the skirt of her holland dress, as she had 
seen Madame Delaunay’s Jane do on occasions of great 
cleaning up. Then she made her way to the front parlour, 
mentally soliloquising all the time she was at work. 

“iSome day,” she thought, beginning operations by 
vigorously shaking the blinds and curtains, “ I hope I 
shall look back upon this first part of my married life as 
the worst part of it — half these chairs must go away, at 
least; still I don’t see what the future is to do for us — 
what a hopeless combination of wall and carpet, to be 
sure, beetroot and cabbage green. Will it bring different 
feelings, even if it brings no change in the outer life, I 
wonder? People are so fond of telling one happiness 
is all within one’s self. I don’t think so ; I don’t find it 
so. (That table looks as if it had grown out of that 
green patch in the centre : I must drag it towards the 
windows and plant it between them.) If it were so, why 
should not everybody live alone? ‘ Happiness is much 
more dependent upon one’s relations with the people 
about one than upon one’s self, I think. But where is 
the use of aiming at happiness after all ? I never thought 
about it at Beau-Sejour, which proves that it was there. 


JOSIAH COMES TO RECONNOITRE. 187 

I suppose. Who IS happy who thinks about anything 
at all? That daub of a picture must go. I will hang 
Chubby’s smiling face up there instead. What a long 
time since I have seen my father ! I know he is well ; 
I know nothing more, excepting that he cannot care for 
me much. I would have sacrificed my pride and my 
secret a hundred times over if his case had been mine. 
Ever since that one wretched evening, .selectors and 
selectors’ huts have been a sort of tabooed subject be- 
tween George and me. Now, let me see : Mrs. McClosky 
will look either covert antagonism at my arrangements, 
or she will look as if she were making allowances for me, 
which is worse. I am taller than she is — half a head 
at least. I’m supposed to be her mistress. Why can’t 
I go into the kitchen, and look perfectly unconstrained, 
and say, ‘ Mrs. McClosky ! I am making a little change 
in the arrangements inside. I want you to clean the 
window's in the front room, and — give me a duster, 
please ’ ! I shall rehearse it going down the passage.” 

To rehearse and to come before your audience are 
two distinct things. Mrs.. McClosky’s hard Scotch face 
only looked up from the potatoes she w'as peeling, and 
Pauline lost her cue. 

“If you will give me a duster, please, Mrs. McClosky! 
and — and— I think there are too many chairs in the 
front parlour. I think I’ll take it in hand.” 

“ Ech ! Mistress Drafton,” replied Mrs. McClosky, 
with unflinching severity of tone, “ye’ll tak’ mair than 
that in hand. I’m thinkin’ — ye’ll tak’ them in hand as 
micht ha’ been your mither ! ” 

Thereupon she handed over the duster with such an 
air of forgiveness that Pauline postponed saying any- 
thing about the windows. 

Lest it should appear that my heroine was of a lachry- 
mose tendency, it may be as well to pass over the interval 
employed in the arranging of all her childhood’s treasures. 
Every successive year of her life had been marked by 
tokens of her grandmother’s watchful love. One might 
have traced the progress of her mind from the period of 
happy credulity through stages of aw'akening and question- 
ing only by looking at the piles of books inscribed w'ith 
her name. There w'ere all sorts of tender wordings on 
the fly-leaves. ♦ 


i88 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


“Pour une petite Curieuse” — “A ma chere fillette”— 
“Pour Tenfant gatee de sa Bonne-maman.” What im- 
possible delight “Folk-Lore” had once on a time afforded 
her ! Before Chubby was ^orn she had spent half her 
time with the, pranksome little beings therein described. 
How well Madame Delaunay had known when the 
acceptance of earth as earth, and flesh as flesh, had 
changed into, the longing to know the before of the earth 
and the before of the flesh. Then natural science had 
seemed to bring so many other things in its train. Before 
the wonder had come, of what avail to foster the wonder ? 
But once awakened by natural impulse, it is inexhaustible, 
even as the means of gratifying it are inexhaustible. 
The more it is fed, the more it asks, because to feed 
it increases its power of asking— proving thereby that 
the difference between corporeal and spiritual hunger 
is as the difference between body and soul — the one 
finite, the' other infinite. Next to a volume of Victor 
Hugo’s tragedies, Pauline found an album given to her 
by madame only a few weeks before George had come 
to Sydney. She could not help smiling to herself as she 
opened it, and saw the first effort that was to herald 
her maturer productions. The poor effort stood unsup- 
ported, with its erasures and errors, on the first page. 
It had heralded nothing but a blank, and as Pauline 
turned over the unsoiled tinted pages, she thought her 
mind had become as blank as these. The lines had 
been written when the force theory had taken strong 
hold of her . imagination, and she remembered that, at 
the time of writing them, she had believed herself to be 
thinking, with an almost Byronic intensity of gloom, about 
the mysterious end of unasked-for existence — then had 
thrown down the pencil at Chubby’s call, and raced him 
to the sea-shore, where they had thrown stranded star-fish 
back into the water with much zest. 

The lines had come to an abrupt halt. She read them 
over now to herself, half-pityingly, half-disdainfully — 

“ I wish my thoughts might ripple forth in song, 

Clothed in the brightest of bright imagery, 

That like well-favoured guests, who make their way 
Into the halls of monarchs’ j^alaces. 

They might find entrance into higher minds. 

Ah me ! what vain endeavours do they make 
To struggle into utterance ! How fruitlessly 


JOSIAH COMES TO RECONNOITRE. 


189 


The when, the why, the wherefore, day and night, 
With clamorous voice besiege my wearied brain 1 
Relentless Force, monstrous like Proteus, 

Like Proteus multiplied a billion times, 

Assumes in me a self-tormenting shape. 

Excites the craving, and withholds the food. 

Must Force itself then never rest ? Alas ! 

For ever and ever is it doomed to find 
New forms wherewith to toy inconsequently. 

Ever collect and re-collect the atoms, 

Awake them to a sense of suffering 
In consciousness of being— then disperse them I" 


Pauline hesitated at the end whether to tear out 
the page, or to leave it in her book and lock it away. 
She locked it away — otherwise the lines could never 
have been transcribed here. 

When the brick-dust of the wall had been toned 
down by photographs and palm-leaf fans — when the table 
was covered with her books and the mantlepiece with 
ornaments — when she had dispersed the superfluity of 
stiff leather chairs about the room, and divested the 
remaining ones of a certain air of imbecile and hopeless 
expectancy, consequent upon their never being sat 
upon — she brought George’s easy-chair and her own 
favourite low seat from the little back room, and pleased 
herself by thinking how surprised George would be at 
the transformation she had effected. 

Mrs. McClosky disturbed the current of her reflections 
by rapping smartly at the door. The good woman could 
not refrain from casting a furtive glance round the room 
before entering upon her business with a premonitory sniff. 

“'Diere’s a mon frae the ‘selection’ has a word to 
say .wi’ ye, Mrs. Drafton I ” 

“Oh, is there?” cried Pauline, starting up. “Where 
is he? I’ll come at once.” 

She ran down the passage in the full expectation 
of seeing her father. It was a disappointment when 
Pulver greet,ed her in his strangled voice. 

“ Steady, boys — steady 1 ” he croaked, pulling at the 
usual lock with more than the usual effect, and turning 
the benignant currants upon Pauline. Then twisting 
them round with, sudden dexterity to assure himself that 
Mrs. McClosky was not within hearing, he put both 
hands on either side of his mouth, as if he were speak- 
ing through a trumpet, and hoarsely whispered — 


190 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


“ Struck our colours ! Leave port to-morrow ! ” 

“To-morrow! Are you going away to-morrow?” she 
asked, not quite understanding him. “Where?” 

“My orders — are — to say — nothing,” said Pulver, 
speaking in gasps through his imaginary trumpet. “ I 
seen — your man — cruising round — this morning. I bore 
— down — upon you — without orders.” 

“ Oh dear,” said Pauline, perplexed, “ that can’t be ! 
But I’m so glad you came. I’ll come — I’ll come this 
afternoon, without fail.” 

After Pulver is gone Pauline reflects at length upon 
the risk she is incurring, not with the most far-off idea 
of abandoning her project, but rather by way of pro- 
viding herself against unforeseen discovery. It has 
become a matter of course that Pauline should ride or 
drive every afternoon, never, until now, without George ; 
but there can be no reason why, when George is away, 
she should not order her horse to be saddled and go 
out riding by herself. She weighs all the probabilities 
of his coming back early and riding to meet her as she 
is returning home by the river. She pictures with a shudder 
his expression if he should take it into his head to ride 
after her to the selector’s hut. Everything for the last few 
months has been so peaceful at the station ! 

Mr. John Smith’s name has fallen into disuse. Only 
when Pauline has been out on the run with George, 
she has chanced to see Pulver sometimes on his way 
to the township. She knows that her father is well, 
and that though he will forgive her for never coming 
to see him, he would not forgive her for risking, either 
by speech or letter, the betrayal of his secret. But 
she cannot let him go now without a little more 
certain knowledge of his probable fate. He is her 
father after all. During that long period at Beau- 
Sejour, when nothing had been heard of him, Pauline 
had been quite content to let matters take their course, 
taking it for granted that he was at sea and could 
not write. “ No news is good news,” is so easy of 
application when we have no heart interest in the 
person from whom news is deficient How different 
the case would have been if madame or Chubby had 
neglected to write ! No news then would have meant 
sleepless nights and dragged-out, weary days. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

JOSIAH’S DISCOVERY. 

•* 'Tis good to doubt the worst, 

We may in our belief be too secure.” 

—Webster and Rowley. 

Whatever may be the dual nature of our brains, it is 
next to impossible to think intently of more than one 
thing at a time. When Pauline sallies forth on 
Mulatto this afternoon, resisting all suggestions that a 
man or boy should follow her as a groom, every 
thought, every feeling is absorbed in the desire to see 
her father, and to see him without her husband’s 

knowledge. With any other object in view, she must 
have delighted in the sense of freedom and libert)’. 
All the plain for her own, and Mulatto at one with 
her in his desire to stretch his length across it. 

So carefully has he been broken in by George, that he 
never affects the homely jog-trot peculiar to all Australian 
horses — an idiosyncrasy which renders them specially 

valuable to people with “livers.” Stable fed, and daily 

groomed, answering to her lightest touch. Mulatto would 
have borne Pauline down the crowded Row in Hyde 

Park with as fleet a grace as here by the desolate Murray 
in the wilds of Victoria. Mulatto is tranquil, but his 
rider is scared. From behind dead trunks, in patches of 
scrub on alLsides; George’s eyes seem to confront her. 

The far-off haven of the hut looms in sight at last. 
There stands the selector’s cart, packed almost as Pauline 
remembers it at first, close to the door. The farm im- 
plernents are gone. If it were not for the open door, 
Pauline would believe that she had come in vain, and 
that her father had gone away in his desire to avoid her. 
She does not think so,* however, when she has dismounted 
and put her arms round his neck, and when she has 
heard him speak to her for almost the first time in her 


192 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


life as a father might speak to his child. If she should 
never see him again, if in his remoter hiding-place he 
should hide himself away from her presence for ever, if 
he should be restored to his position, and taking another 
wife, and bestowing his love upon other children, should 
forget the existence of his first-born as he had forgotten 
it before, Pauline will at least have this to remember — 
that he has shown, in this last interview, some tenderness 
of affection for her, some anxiety for her happiness, some 
return of the fatherly impulse which ‘prompted him to 
kiss her as she lay at his feet and looked up into his 
face with dreamily-loving eyes. “A thousand times worth 
the risk ! ” she thinks, as with pale subdued face she 
stands at the door and gives him her last embrace. 
Poor Pulver too must have a parting message, and Pulver 
is without doubt settling accounts at the township with 
wheezy self-importance. 

Neither father nor daughter, standing in the full light 
of the bronze-hued sunset, are aware of two pairs of eyes 
fixedly regarding them from the tangle of scrub by the 
river. One of these is a pair of gleaming steely-blue 
eyes, the other a pair of reddish-black, yellow-white, 
bloodshot eyes. As the selector helps her on to her 
saddle, and for the last, the very last time, the girl bends 
down her head and encircles her father’s neck with her 
arm, the steely-blue eyes grow lurid with evil intent. 
As the horse starts off, the steely-blue eyes follow with 
a fierce stare the pretty downcast head of the rider, 
reflecting back the rich copper-coloured rays of the fast 
disappearing sun ; as the sad outline of the selector 
remains in the doorway the steely-blue eyes glare angrily 
at the white hand uplifted to his forehead. 

When the horse is gone, and the selector’s door is 
closed, the steely-blue eyes turn their burning glance with 
diabolical meaning upon their neighbour eyes. Those 
neighbour eyes are the mediums through which a dark 
soul, in an appropriately' dark body, looks out upon the 
waste of which its possessor is the dethroned monarch. 

King Cocky, in default of his usurped majesty, willing 
to do anything for a glass of grog, from joining in a 
corroborree to acting as retriever, and plunging after wild 
duck for a sporting squatter, has awkwardly shouldered 
Josiah’s portmanteau, and is carrying it to Rubria in 


JOSIAH^S DISCOVERY. 


193 


anticipation of a pour-boire of considerable magnitude. 
Since savages of all nations make their wives their beasts 
of burden, King Cocky is not as much at home with the 
portmanteau as his “ lubra ” would have been. He 
chuckles at the rest brought about by Josiah’s inspection. 
In the waning light he has the air of a ghastly Guy 
Fawkes, or a knock-kneed but portly scarecrow set there 
to frighten the magpies. 

“Who’s place that, eh?” said Josiah, in a yell. “What 
you call that ’em ’ouse?” 

“Baal me know,” whined King Cocky. “Baal black 
fellow go long o’ dat feller.” 

“Know that a one, eh?” yelled Josiah again, pointing 
a fat forefinger at the girl riding away in the dusk. 

“O — o — o — oh, budgeree,” howled King Cocky, draw- 
ing together his carnivorous lips, and opening them out 
suddenly in a snorting laugh. 

“Hold your noise, will you — you fool?” shouted Josiah, 
livid. He trampled on with fierce haste through the 
scrub,' lifting his short broad legs high at each stride, 
his whole body breathing the hateful triumph of his evil- 
dreaming mind. 

But King Cocky had no trammels of designing women 
with faces like angels to discover and profit l)y. He had 
nothing but a portmanteau to carry, and an uncertain 
prospect of a fitting recompense for an effort so much 
at variance with his constitutional habits. He therefore 
came to an abrupt halt, and the portmantejyi tumbled 
heavily at Josiah’s feet. King Cocky was about to strike. 

“This black fellow done long o’ you. Baal want ’em 
job.” . 

He shook his head deplorably, like a Hindu’s monkey 
god whose china pate has been set wagging. 

Josiah found an answer to the difficulty by the 
tender of half-a-crown. 

“Come on — come on,” he said. “I’ake ’em box. 
No gammon, now ! ” 

Whether it was Josiah’s decision, or the feel of the half- 
crown that influenced King Cocky, does not appear. His 
majesty clawed again at the portmanteau, and grunting 
some almo.st inarticulate sounds resembling “ Burra -murra- 
burra,” he shuffled along in Mr. Carp’s rear. 

Mulatto meanwhile was bearing Pauline home with 

N 


194 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


the speed of a Pegasus. If only, in imitation ol 
Pegasus too, Mulatto’s dainty hoofs could have called 
forth a fountain on the arid soil of Rubria, and set 
the water trickling across the parched plains, as it had 
trickled down the sides of Mount Helicon ! 

Pauline had hardly returned an hour, and was already 
making a candle-light survey of her arrangements of 
the morning, when she was warned by the barking 
of the dogs outside that somebody .must be at hand. 
She knew that Veno and Lassie were making short 
runs backwards and forwards, and she waited for the 
clamorous yapping betokening that they wanted to be 
noticed. To Pauline’s surprise, the barking assumed a 
tone of angry disappointment. She took up her candle, 
and went out into the passage to see what was the 
matter. Josiah was on the point of coming in by the 
back entrance. He was staggered at the daring assur- 
ance of the girl. There was no change whatever in the 
sweet candid eyes, looking with most innocent expecta- 
tion out of the setting of the colourless face. How they 
had haunted him, those eyes ! How often the deter- 
mination to “find her out” had been shamed by their 
sad earnestness ! Like “ rare pale Margaret,” she had 
a sort of fairy shield, and her shield warded off, not 
sorrow, but suspicion. She did not like Mr. Carp — she 
disliked him, indeed, more than any one she knew — but 
all questions of personal liking must remain in abeyance 
now that he was, in a sense, her guest. She came 
forward, holding a candlestick in one hand, a little 
flush of surprise mounting to her temples, a half smile 
of welcome parting her lips. Josiah felt a savage 
impulse to unmask her on the spot. What a fool she 
must think him — a still greater fool if she could only know 
what he had thought of her less than two hours ago. 

“What a surprise, Mr. Carp !” she said, giving him her 
hand, then lighting him into the front room with candlestick 
held aloft. “ Well, would you know it again?” 

Josiah’s heated eyeballs wandered round the walls. He 
hardly took in their details. The photographs were so 
many discoloured spots ; the little ornaments, laid out with 
such care, small irregularities — nothing more. 

“Where’s your ’usband?” he asked thickly. 

Pauline looked quickly at him with a sudden fear. 


195 


yOSlAH^S DISCOVERY, 

Could it he possible that Mr. Carp drank ? She hardly 
knew that she was backing to the door in alarm as she 
answered him. 

“George went away this morning. He has not come 
home yet. I expect him every minute.” 

Some demon prompted Josiah to say, “I needn’t 
have been at the trouble of asking. ‘When the cat’s 
away’ — eh, Mrs. D. ? Now, you just look ’ere!” 

He laid his hand on her sleeve. Veno and Lassie 
broke into a furious duet outside. Josiah started, and 
the dogs modified their bark into a howl of wel- 
come. Pauline, unnaturally white, escaped from the 
room, and half ran down the passage to meet her 
husband. “Veno — poor old man! — was a good old 
dog, then ! ” she heard him say, but he did not stay 
to say any more. He came straight into the house, 
with the old fond expression of tender expectancy beam- 
ing out of his eyes, tired and sunburnt, and mightily 
impatient to greet his wife. Pauline had never been so 
glad to see him before. She let him kiss her there in the 
passage, and almost clung to him as he did so. 

“ Poor old woman 1 ” said George. “ You look quite 
ill, my darling ! What’s the matter ? ” 

She had recovered herself by this time. 

“I’m all right, George, only a little tired;” then in 
a whisper, “ Mr. Carp’s in there ! ” 

“ The devil he is ! ” said George. His eyebrows fell 
into their old trick of climbing up his forehead in his 
vexation. “ When did he come ? ” 

“ Only a minute ago ! ” she replied. “ You go into the 
room and speak to him. I’ll go and tell Mrs. McClosky to 
see about getting the spare room ready.” 

All thought of the little surprise she had prepared 
was scared" away. Thank heaven! George had come. 
If Mr. Carp were really tipsy (and Pauline’s experi- 
ence of tipsy people was so limited that her notions 
regarding them were somewhat mixed), George would 
soon find it out. Of course he would prevent her 
from coming into the room any more, and she would 
be saved from contact with that dreadful presence, 
from the lurid glare of those terrible eyes. She 
quailed at the recollection. She could not bear that 
the first person to come among her hallowed treasures 


196 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


should be Josiah Carp. But to Pauline’s astonish- 
ment, half-aivhour afterwards she found herself seated 
in the most, natural way behind her tea-tray in the 
little back room. Mrs. McClosky gyrated between 
Mr. Carp and Mr. Drafton with grilled chops and 
ham and eggs, as uncertain to whom to accord the 
dish of honour, while the two men talked with that 
appearance of cordiality which springs from a desire 
on the part of people who dislike each other covertly 
to keep their dislikes to themselves. 

George was ravenously hungry. Josiah professed to 
have dined just before starting. 

“I come on foot,” he said, “just to ’ave a. look at the 
place. I don’t see any signs of grass anywhere. If the 
mountain won’t come to Mahomet, why, Mahomet must go 
to the mountain. If the grass won’t come to the sheep, 
why, the sheep must go to the gras3. You’d better let ’em 
travel round. That’s my opinion. ” 

“And I can back it up,” said George, abstracting 
a fourth chop from the dish. “ That’s the very thing 
I’ve been over to McGuiness about. He’s a smart 
fellow that, mind you I ‘ Mr. Drafton,’ he says, ‘ the 
sheep’s dying by the score, and I can’t save ’em.’ 
Travel them round, say I, of course. There’s another 
cove shepherding right away beyond Flinder’s paddock. 
He’ll be coming for his rations to-morrow. Then you 
can have a talk to him.” 

“ By-the-bye,” said Josiah, with a lowering side-glance 
at Pauline, “you never told me they were beginning to 
select about ’ere ! ” 

“ Oh — ah — yes ! ” answered George. An impulse he could 
not control directed his eyes to Pauline too. The tell-tale 
face was deepening in colour. The lips were trembling. 
George saw in it confusion at the remembrance of that 
evening of misery. Josiah saw the evidences of guilt. 
She was hardened, but not brazen-faced yet. 

“A fellow called Smiih,” continued George, “and 
another. There’s two of them at it ; but they won’t do 
much good with it anyhow.” 

“Not they,” said Josiah, still scowling at Pauline; “they’ve 
done ’arm enough already — but it’s a long lane that has no 
turning ! A day of reckonin’ ’ll come. It’ll come sooner 
than some people think for. I’ll answer for that 1 ” 

George held out his cup for more tea, and gave his 


JOSIAH^S DISCOVERY. 


197 


wife the merest flash of a wink with the left eye. This 
by way of indicating his amusement at Josiah’s wrath on 
the subject of free selectors. 

“ Oh, the men are right enough,” he said ; “ one of 
them’s an out and out gentleman. 'You can see that 
in half a minute.” 

“ He’s an out and out thief,” said Josiah, his eyes 
almost bursting out of their sockets with rage ; “ but I’ll 
’ave the best of ’im yet, the infernal scoundrel ! ” 

“ What an old idiot,” thought George, “to be so ma(^ 
about a few paltry acres of worthless land. “ He’ll have 
a fit of apoplexy if he doesn’t look out. I’d better turn 
him on to the subject of Mr. Duffy. Pauline’il see then 
whether I’ve drawn the long bow about his temper or not.” 

Sir Gavan Duffy, not Sir Gavan in those days, but plain 
Mr. Duffy, had in this his period of power, marked among 
others Josiah’s runs with the fatal blue colour, thereby leav- 
ing them open to the depredations of the selectors. 

Mr. Duffy was in consequence Josiah’s beie noire. 

“You’d better hammer Mr. Duffy, I think, sir; he’s 
the responsible party, isn’t he.?” Then seeing that his 
uncle was almost mute with exasperation, George ad- 
dressed himself to his wife. 

“You look dead beat, old woman. What have you 
been up to all day ? ” 

“ I am a little tired,” she replied. 

“ What’s made you tired ? ” 

“Why, haven’t you noticed all my work of trans- 
formation in the front room? I expected you to be 
overwhelmed, with astonishment and rapture!” 

“Yes, you’ve rigged it up as a sort of reception-room, 
I think ; but/ nobody’s likely to see it. Haven’t you 
been out at all?” 

It was of no use. Pauline could not look like her 
natural self when she had anything to conceal. Between 
the double pair of eyes she felt as between two fires. 

“Yes,” she made answer desperately; “I’ve been for 
a ride on Mulatto.” 

“ Oh I ” said George, raising his eyebrows ; “ where 
did you go ? ” 

“ Not far — at least not very far — along the river banks 
a little way ! ” 

“You didn’t go towards the township, then?” 

“No, I didn’t,” said Pauline, feeling herself frightened 


198 IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 

and goaded, and talking on at random. “ If you like 
to get the plan of Rubria, I’ll show you just where I 
went, and exactly where I stopped to make Mulatto 
jump a log, and exactly where I stopped to look at a 
black swan— and oh! do you know, George, I think 
something must be the matter with Victory, because 
as I was coming back through ' the yard little Alexander 
McClosky was leading him past the harness-room, and 
Victory didn’t look a bit shiny, and — and he walked with 
his head poked forward so funnily — you can’t think!” 

How she delivered herself of this tirade she never 
knew. She only knew that within a few feet of her 
was a face that regarded her with eyes of malicious 
distrust and a mouth of sardonic expression. Still for 
the moment her end was gained. 

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about what you don’t know 
anything about,” exclaimed George peevishly — he regarded 
with a fear that was almost superstitious in its nature any 
hint, any rumours, affecting the well-being of the colt. 
“ I’ll go and have a look at him, I think.” 

“What’s that you’re talking of?” asked Josiah. 

“ A Panic colt,” said George, rising as he spoke. “ Oh, 
I know what I’m about ; let me alone for that. He’s 
worth double the money already. I wouldn’t take six 
times what I gave for him ; so there ! ” 

“And what are you going to do with him?” 

“That’s my look-out. I bought him at my own risk. 
His feed costs me next to nothing. I’ll make a good 
thing out of him one of these days, see if I don’t.” 

George never failed to become excited when any 
allusions were made to Victory. He half approved, 
half blamed the candour of his own manner towards 
his uncle — a man who would die worth hundreds of 
thousands perhaps — and whose testamentary dispositions 
were known to nobody. 

“But he won’t get me to cotton to him, for all his 
money,’’ said George to himself as he went out of the room. 

A minute later and some fleet footsteps were over- 
taking his, as he swung the lantern backwards and 
forwards on his way to the stables. 

“Why, Pauline! what brings you out after me, my old 
woman? Why don’t you stay and do the amiable to 
the old man? He’ll think it very queer you leaving 
him in that way ! ” 


yOSIAH'S DISCOVERY. 


199 


“Oh no, he won’t,” panted Pauline; “he’s sitting in 
the arm-chair by the table in the back-room, the old 
arm-chair that I left there, you know. And he’s lit his 
))ipe, and I didn’t take any of the 'Arguses away, so I 
know he doesn’t want anything.” 

“ He’ll be pumping Mrs. McClosky ; that’s him all 
over,” said George. 

“Will he really? Does he descend so low as that? 
Besides, what can he want Mrs. McClosky to enlighten 
him about ? ” 

“ Oh, a whole lot of things. Much I care for his prying, 
that’s all. You can say now, Pauline — straight — could my 
worst enemy accuse me of truckling to my uncle ? ” 

“I think you’re rather rude to him, on the contrary, 
George; and to what end after all?” 

“No, I ain’t,” said George, adopting a tone of injured 
facetiousness. “Now, you little horsebreaker, we’ll see 
what your opinion’s worth about the colt ! ” 

He unpadlocked the door, and entered Victory’s straw- 
covered loose-box, followed by Pauline. He walked round 
the colt, looking at him critically from every point of view 
— holding the lantern low, and inspecting each one of Vic- 
tory’s shapely legs in turn. Pauline wished all possible 
good on Victory’s behalf. If miraculously on this one par- 
ticular night he could only have developed the slightest 
ailment, to pass away as miraculously the very next morning, 
Pauline would have been fonder of Victory than ever. 

“ Hang me if I didn’t think for a minute he’d a 
swelling on the hock — on the off hind leg there ! ” said 
George — adopting stable phraseology the moment he 
found himself in the stables, and standing up again 
with reassured face. “I don’t know what on earth you 
mean by giving me such a fright for nothing I ” 

“Well, I’m as glad as you are that there’s nothing 
the matter,” answered Pauline, putting an arm round 
the animal’s neck. Victory rubbed his nose against her 
shoulder, and pushed forward his small head as if he 
were trying to bore it under her arm. 

“ Isn’t he kind ? ” exclaimed George, supremely gratified 
at the bon accord between his two favourites. “ I believe 
that colt loves you, upon my word I do!” 

“I like feeling his skin; it’s like stroking plush,” 
said Pauline, caressing his neck. 

“ And just you look at it when I hold the lantern so,” 


200 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


said George, making the light play over the alternate 
patches of velvety dark and glistening light across Victory’s 
back. What in the Lord’s name could you mean by 
saying he looked sick? I never saw him look so fit 
in my life ! ” 

I suppose he was dusty, then,” *she murmured, hiding 
her face against the colt’s neck. “I won’t malign him 
any more, I promise.” 

“ I like you to take notice of him, though, my old 
woman ; it shows you keep an eye on my interests 
when I’m out of the road. I reckon on Victory to pull 
me through, I tell you, for I don’t know what we’re 
coming to with such a season as this.” 

“What is the worst that could happen, George?” 

“That I should be up a tree, my dear, as high as a 
kite, without a feather to fly with. There’s no selling 
out now ; but things’ll take a turn, I expect. So long 
as you stick to me, I care for nothing. Besides, the 
old man’s bound to do something for us sooner or 
later. I say, you’d better go and look after him inside. 
It isn’t the thing leaving him in that way. I’ll go and 
shoot some ’possums for the dogs.” 

“ Oh no, George,” in a tone of alarm. “ If you ■ do, 
I shall go with you.” 

“What,” said George, delighted, “you’d tramp about 
with me after the opossums ! I was only joking, my 
darling. We’ll have to go in and listen to some of 
Master Carp’s preachings. But another night, if you’ll 
come. I’ll show you some sport. Now you’re bound to 
give me a kiss after that.” 

Pauline despised herself heartily as she obeyed him. 
In word, in action, in thought, she had been deceiving 
him from the moment of his coming home to her. 
But her motive was pure ! Her word to her father was 
sacred ! All this might be ; and yet, to learn that a 
woman’s weapon is deceit, to practise her skill in using 
the weapon until it should become a familiar arm, easy to 
wield, this schooling was degrading, self-abasing. Better 
far feel as in the old Beau-Sejour days, when a thought 
not shared with madame, a scheme of which Chubby was 
not the innocent confidant and abettor, stood condemned, 
as unworthy the occupation of her mind. 


CHAPl'ER XIX. 

yOSIAH’S DREAM. 

“True, I talk of dreams, 

Which are the children of an idle brain, 

.Begot of nothing but vain fantasy." 

Out upon the maxim which condemns alone the man 
of late dinners and heavy suppers to dreams and mid- 
night visions 1 Emptiness and light-headedness, mated 
together, court the impalpable sprites of darkness. Have 
I not, in days long gone by, found atonement for 
the penalty of going supperless to bed by the prettiest 
and most alluring of nightly visitants? Far down 
in the black depths of the bolster have I not seen 
a solemn march of crystal sugar-loaves, contracting 
into shining balls as they travelled onwards? Knobs 
of candy, too, glittering like spar, that always evaded my 
willing hand ? Such a Barmecide’s feast was never 
spread before my tightly-shut eyes if virtuous weak tea, 
bread and butter, or bread and treacle, had comforted 
my inner infant at the nursery table. 

Now Josiah Carp, though a man of amazing dinners, was 
not a man of dreams. Plethoric sleep was his nightly 
lot ; yet on the especial occasion of his stay at Rubria, on 
the occasion of his finding no stomach for Mrs. McClosky’s 
conscientious cookery, on the occasion of his thereby 
betaking himself fasting to his bed, he dreamed a dream ; 
and in that to dream at all was a new experience to Mr. 
Carp, and in that his dream was of so astounding and 
prodigious a nature as to influence his waking actions, it 
must by no means be lightly regarded, but rather narrated 
in full, as one of those dreams that 

“ Leave a weight upon our waking thoughts." 

It seemed, then, to Josiah in his dream, that he was 
again standing in the scrub with King Cocky by his 

side, but King Cocky’s bloodshot eyes had grown redder 

201 


202 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


and more bloodshot until they glowed like two coals of 
living fire. His hands, always clutching at Josiah’s 
portmanteau, had developed long tenacious claws, like 
the hands of the lovely lady in the “ Ingoldsby Legends” 
who goes a-visiting among the abbots, and of whom it 
is said, when a drop of holy water fell on her, that “ her 
hands turned to paws, with nasty 'great claws,” &c. 

Josiah felt uncomfortable, but he was not more aston- 
ished than we any of us are, in our dreams, when the 
horse we are. riding turns into the footstool, or the cat 
repeats to us the substance of a parliamentary debate. 
Moreover, he was altogether too busy to pay much 
attention to his majesty’s eyes or claws, for it seemed 
to him at the moment that he was wholly engrossed in 
the labour of beating the scrub with a stick in search of 
a diamond snake. Josiah had seen the undulating 
motion of the snake’s back, and was quite dazzled by 
the multifarious colours reflected from it. In passing, 
be it remarked, it was somewhat early in the season for 
the appearance of diamond snakes, or, for the matter of 
that, of snakes of any kind whatever. Josiah, however, 
did not reflect upon probabilities of this nature. We 
think nothing in a dream* of eclipsing the sun, or of 
taking a jump into all the seasons in turn. But, for all 
his beating of the scrub, Josiah could not find the 
snake ; nevertheless he could hear its tail thumping the 
ground with a sound like that of horses’ hoofs upon the turf. 

At last King Cocky laid a hand, or more properly a 
claw, upon his arm. Josiah’s funny-bone seemed to 
shrivel up at the contact, but his arm was directed 
aright ; with supernatural power he thrust forward a 
hand and seized the snake by the neck. Again, let it 
be remarked, Josiah was the last man in the world to 
lay hold of a snake in his waking moments- — which did 
not prevent him in his dream from holding it tightly by 
the neck and endeavouring to strangle it. Strange to 
say, it twined its flexible body round his arm, and looked 
straight out of its narrow head with Pauline’s eyes. 
Darkly and softly, though defiantly withal, they looked 
full into his. His hands seemed powerless. They could 
not exert any pressure; and while he was hesitating, a 
great roar of seething, rushing water sounded in his ear. 
In another instant the river Murray had risen above its 


203 


JOSIAhPS DREAM, 

banks, and was sweeping towards him across the thirsting 
plain with muddy might. So he threw up his arms for 
safety, and the diamond snake slipped through his hands. 
But while his head was still above the water, lie could 
see the snake pushing its way through the tossing flood 
with lissome joints. And high above the water, clean 
and dry, he could see the roof of the selector’s hut. 
Before the water rose above his head, he had yet time 
to descry the same figure that he had seen the night 
before, but now it was on the roof, waiting with white 
hand extended to draw the snake to its bosom. Then 
Josiah tried to shout, but no voice would come from 
his contracted throat ; only King Cocky’s hand was 
laid again on his shoulder, the long nails dug themselves 
*into his very flesh. King Cocky laughed, as h6 had 
laughed the night before, and with the sound of this 
laugh penetrating his brain, with the smart of the heated 
claws against his arm, Josiah woke groaning. His fore- 
head and temples were quite wet. His arm was cramped. 
His mouth was open with terror. He lay still after his 
dream, marking each sound that brought a promise of 
morning, oppressed by a fear that made him unknown 
to himself. It was a long time before the first white 
ray forced its way through the cracks round the ill-fitting 
window-frame, josiah had never So welcomed a ray 
before. The darkness had not been accompanied by 
utter stillness. All through the night a cantankerous 
native cat had been scratching, sneezing, and hissing on 
the roof. No Banshee could have uttered a more desolate 
wail than the sad curlew. One would have imagined a 
lost spirit to be wandering over the plains. 

So soon, however, as the ground-larks twittered and 
the jackasses set to out-laughing each other — above all, 
when the^ cheerful, reckless note of joyous independence 
sounded from the early-rising magpies, Josiah’s courage — 
it never had been of a very daring description — partially 
returned to him. Girl or serpent, Pauline was not going 
to get the better of him. If she wanted to secure his 
secrecy, he would dictate his own terms. She might 
fool her own husband. Happily Josiah was not a man 
to be fooled. His dream determined him ; there was no 
time to be lost. He would watch his opportunity ; he 
would make her feel his power that very day. 


204 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Morning in full sets all the station-hands to work. No 
one but feels that Mr. Carp’s eyes may not be watching 
him furtively from behind a blind. Mrs. McClosky makes 
a parade of banging the rugs precisely beneath his window, 
that she may impress him with her industrial energy. 
Little Alexander McClosky, tutored by George, leads the 
colt into unaccustomed paths for his morning walk. It 
is not expedient that Victory should be flaunted in Mr. 
Carp’s face. The docile McClosky, instructed by his 
wife, shoulders logs, and sweeps round the wood-heap, as 
if Josiah were about to dance “mulberry bush” around 
it. The boundary rider is astir before sunrise, and away 
on his astonished horse at the hour when his sleep is 
wont to be of the sweetest. Two swagmen creep away 
in the* early light. Odd hands, normally kept from the * 
mischief which Dr. Watts has informed us to be held in 
readiness by Satan for all unemployed digits by jobs in 
the fencing, butchering, grooming, or shepherding line, 
find ready-to-hand tasks with inventive ingenuity. 

Perhaps the little Rubria world would be iess on the 
alert could it divine the exceptional frame of mind of 
its part — and larger part — possessor. Josiah neither stalks 
round the outbuildings nor rates the men after his usual 
fashion. He sits through the "breakfast hour with abstracted 
brow, answering by short monosyllables George’s suggestive 
scraps of information respecting the sheep and the cattle. 
George has in fact so much of the conversation to sustain 
that it assumes (if such a word is permissible) a solilo- 
quistic character. Pauline concentrates her whole atten- 
tion on the tea and the coffee, passes the toast and the 
butter, and remains absorbed in the contemplation of her 
plate. She is calculating on the arrival of a budget of 
Beau-Sejour news. Somebody will surely ride to the 
township for the letters before the day is over. With 
such a prospect in store, even Mr. Carp’s presence 
cannot depress her ; even the inevitable certainty that 
she will be called upon to listen to proverbs, to warn- 
ings, to a gloomy forecast of the consequences of the 
drought, seems less appalling from a morning point of 
view. She has made up her mind that Josiah must 
have been tired and excited the night before, and that 
to attach any importance to his peculiarities is to make 
them of more importance than they are worth. Provided 


y OS I AH’S DREAM. 


205 


he only goes away soon ; and George has told her Mr. 
Carp only stays long enough to make everybody uncom- 
fortable. He has accomplished this so quickly in her 
case that, calculating the number of people there are on 
the station, and the number of hours there are in a day, 
she may hope to see Josiah take his departure before 
the arrival of the night. 

“There now,” says George, when he has breakfasted 
and talked his fill, “ Tin off. I’ve got some cattle to 
brand this morning. There’s that im))orted cow you 
sent up last week, and a lot of heifers. I’ll do it 
straight off the reel, if you’ll come out now and have a 
look at them. We can ride round afterwards, if you like.” 

“I’m in no ’urry,” replies Mr. Carp ambiguously. “A 
bad thing, you know, to ’urry after meals.” 

“Yes; but,” expostulated George, marvelling at this new 
freak on the part oi his bustling uncle, “ I’ve got the cattle all 
yarded. It’s just outside here, you know. It’s no distance.” 

“All right, all right. There’s no eye like the master’s 
eye,” says Josiah testily, following George out of the room 
without much show of alacrity. 

But when the work of branding has fairly begun, George 
on looking round is surprised to see that his uncle’s post of 
observation by the fence is empty and “ knows him not.” 

“ Of all the rum sticks ! ” thinks George to himself, 
flourishing his brand. It is a misfortune for the guileless 
heifers, that absence of Mr. Carp. George unwittingly 
visits his perplexity upon them, digging his red-hot in- 
strument of torture with such unwonted severity into their 
defenceless flanks that a ghastly odour of roast beef 
spreads itself around. 

An Abyssinian would have been maddened by the 
smell, and must needs have brandished his knife over 
the wound. As for the heifers, they raised their pitiful 
cries of concern all unheeded. 

Josiah had waited until his nephew was in full swing. 
Then, careless alike of imported cows, heifers, and foals, 
he had stealthily walked back to the house. Both front 
and back doors stood wide open, and the sunlight came 
streaming half-way down the passage. Josiah went through 
into the verandah, where he lit his pipe, the better to 
arrange his plan of action ; then, pacing up and down along 
its narrow length, he proceeded to make his observations. 


2o6 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


One of the windows of the front parlour, freshly curtained 
by Pauline, stood wide open. Behind it sat Pauline her- 
self. All the defensive weapons wherewith she kept her 
farriiliar at bay were ranged on the window-sill in front 
of her. There were strips of black cloth lying in the 
neighbourhood of a heap of brightly-tinted silks — known 
to such as ■ are* versed in the handicraft of fancy-work as 
“floss silk.” There was a book — held open by a minia- 
ture pair of scissors, and adroitly arranged with a view 
to enabling her to carry on the double operation of 
stitching and reading. First a line — then a stitch ; two 
lines— two stitches. When a verse of the poem, whereat 
the book lies open, is committed to heart, there comes 
an unlimited number of stitches. But accounts must be 
squared between the stripes and the verses, or the familiar 
cannot be said to have been properly fought by both 
fingers and brain. 

This is the task to which Pauline has betaken herself 
when she has seen Mj. Carp’s broad back, in company 
with her husband’s slim one, making for the cattle-yards 
after breakfast. It is a pleasant work- inspiring morning. 
The sun seems just a little shame-faced for once in a 
way, and is shining in an abashed manner through a hazy 
mist. No dust, no hot winds, no flies, no mosquitoes 
in this early stage of the season. Nothing but a warm 
dry air within and without In the garden, leaves visibly 
unfolding themselves, green and gold ground-parrots rust- 
ling busily among the low-lying hyacinths and jonquils, 
tiny shell-parrots chirruping perkily to each other from 
among the boughs of the fig-trees. Pauline is beginning 
to be aware of the enlivening sense of their companion- 
ship, when the heavy tread of Josiah’s feet, so easily 
distinguishable from her husband’s springy footstep, strikes 
a chill to her heart. What can he want ? Why does 
he pursue her? She had been in such peaceful enjoy- 
ment of her strips of cloth and her verses, and the 
twittering and pecking outside. “But I shall try to let 
it make no difference,” thinks Pauline, with her heart 
beating disagreeably nevertheless. . “ Why should I be 

such a self-conscious fool as to find it almost impossible 
to go on with my work or attend to my book because 
Mr. Carp chooses the verandah to smoke and spit in?” 
She draws her head a little ^Jfarther in, and says oyer to 


yOSIAH'S DREAM. 


207 


herself in audible tones, with lips that hardly move, ihe 
verse she has been learning by heart — 

** He hath outsoared the shadow of our night, 

Envy and calumny, and hate and pain ; 

And that unrest, which men miscall delight, 

Can touch him not” 

“I simply can’t go on. Mr. Carp looks like the 
Calumny come in tangible form. If he comes past the 
window again I shall go.” 

And Mr. Carp comes to the window again, though he 
does not pass it, and Pauline does not go. 

Truth to tell, Josiah had inwardly determined that 
each turn should be his last. He had waited for an 
opportunity of this sort from the time of his rising in 
the morning, flushed and feverish from the effects of his 
dream. What power, short of a supernatural agency, 
such a power as had overcome him in the night, made 
it so impossible for him to walk up to the window and 
confront this girl, so completely in his hands? It had 
been as difflcult to grasp the diamond snake of his dream 
between his paralysed fingers as it now seemed to find 
form of speech for the thoughts that were besetting him. 
And why? Josiah raged within hirnself as he asked — 
why? A downcast head, casting back, like the skin of 
the snake, bright reflections from its ropy coils, a pale 
smooth face creamy of texture, crimson-hued lips, eyes 
dropt over the book — what repellent magic could there 
be in so fair a picture as this? The more innocent 
the eyes, the greater their guilt. Josiah had bullied his 
clerks, his nephew, his defunct wife, his servants — all 
his life long — with or without reason. Was he going to 
quail before a single solitary woman, whom he could 
bring to his feet with a prayer for mercy by a word? 
Were not his eyes and his ears to be relied upon? With 
his eyes — and Josiah had good reason to know that they 
were far-seeing ones — he had beheld the evidences of her 
guilt ; with his ears, only the night before, he had heard 
her lie and prevaricate to her husband. Let her be ever 
so childlike in aspect, she must be old in deceit. She 
was moving now — now she was gathering up her silks. 
Josiah swore she should not escape him. He tramped 
to the window with his pipe in his mouth, leaning his 
two arms on the sill and looking at her strangely. 


2o8 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


“ He is more than ever like the wolf in Red Riding 
Hood,” says Pauline to herself, folding up her strips 
without looking at him ; “ and he is smoking in front of 
my face, too. I should like to see grand’mere’s expres- 
sion if she were here.” 

She lays hold of her heap of silks and half rises from 
her chair. Josiah puts out a detaining hand. 

“ Don’t you go, Mrs. D. ! I’ve something particular 
to say to you.” 

“Yes, Mr. Carp; what is it?” 

The tone of her voice might have frozen the air over a 
crater. She sits with starch uprightness in her chair, at most 
anticipating a long-winded discourse on the error of George’s 
ways. In this case Pauline will rebel. It is not seemly 
that she should listen to treason against her husband. 

Still nothing but silence ensues. The tajjping of the 
collie’s tail on the verandah outside, the fussy pecking 
of the parrots in the boughs, are the only sounds to 
be heard. She makes a fresh effort to move. 

“Stop a minute, Mrs. D. !” Josiah ’s trembling fingers 
clutch at the strips of cloth. He hardly knows what he 
is talking about as he fumbles -with them. “What sort 
o’ work do you call this?” 

“You won’t be very wise even when I’ve enlightened 
you,” replies Pauline, wondrously relieved to find that 
the communication is to bear upon fancy-work. “ It’s 
a kind of ‘applique,’ and I’m certain you haven’t the 
vaguest idea what that means; have you? You stitch 
bits of velvet on to these strips of cloth with coloured 
silks. Grand’m^re — my grandmother, I mean — taught it 
me. It’s a foreign stitch, I think.” 

Josiah lays hold of the only word in the reply which 
seems to have caught his attention. “Yes,” he says 
huskily, “ foreigners are a bad lot ! ” 

A disdainful little smile at what Pauline considers 
an ill-timed joke passes very quickly across her face. 
She has not descended so low as to defend the merits 
of her grandmother or her grandmother’s nationality 
from Mr. Carp’s insinuations. 

Josiah is anathematising his own folly for allowing the 
minutes to slip by without speaking. He lays down his 
pipe before him on the sill, and, unable to look Pauline 
in the face, pulls out his tobacco and his pocket-knife. 


JOSIAWS DREAM. 


209 


“You ’card what I said?” he asks, hacking viciously 
sit his square of tobacco, and just darting a glance of 
inquiry at her face. 

“ Yes.” 

“There’s miliy a true word been spoken in jest.” If 
Josiah were at death’s door, he would greet the King of 
Terrors with a truism of the kind. 

Still it is evident that a conversation conducted upon 
such principles as these must flag. Again Pauline makes 
a move for the door. 

“Stop a minute, Mrs. D. !” — and now Josiah is breathing 
thickly, and the half-cut tobacco drops from his inert 
hands. “Didn’t I say I’d always stand your friend?” 

Friends ! If the window-sill were the impassable 
gulf across which the suffering Dives cried out to the 
pitiless Abraham, it could not separate two beings of 
more different an order. On the one side frenzied 
eyes, and a heated, feverish face, evil passions unbridled 
—on the other startled but most innocent eyes, a cool 
mystified face, entire incomprehensibility of harm. 

“Would you rather be an old man’s darling or a 
young man’s slave?” — it would be a moral impossibility 
for Josiah to preface even a prayer with other than a 
borrowed saying — “ for I tell you there’s nothink ” — 
losing his head altogether — “ no ! nothink you shouldn’t 
’ave that money could buy— if you wanted it; there!” 

What madness prevents him from rightly interpreting 
the gathering terror in Pauline’s face? He can scarcely 
be conscious of what he is doing. He clutches at her 
sleeve, and whispers with thick articulation, “ Only don’t 
keep all your kisses for the selector.” 

Then, to her crushing shame and distress, does a 
sudden light for the first time break in upon Pauline’s- 
mind. Her rashness of yesterday has been her own or 
her lather’s undoing. No friendly inspiration comes to 
her aid, no ingenious explanation prompts itself, as she 
pulls away her arm with loathing. But such burning 
indignation flashes out of the soft eyes that Josiah is 
stung into throwing out venom. 

And thereupon George walks suddenly into the room, 
imported cows and heifers uppermost in his mind. That 
lomething unusual has been said or done George feels 
convinced at a glance. Young women, engaged in the 

o 


210 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


peaceful pursuit of stitching velvet on to cloth with 
bright-coloured silk, are not wont to put on the mask 
of Melpomene at ten o’clock in the morning — nor can 
there be any reason why an elderly gentleman, obese, and 
hitherto reputed sane, should stand pipeless and hatless, 
with the air of an Orestes, at the same prosaic hour. 

So George stalks up to his wife, and looking danger- 
ously at Josiah’s purple face, “What’s up now?” he asks 
sharply. 

Then Mr. Carp feels that here is an occasion for 
satisfying his thirst for revenge. Now Pauline will learn 
that to evince her repugnance so unblushingly a minute 
ago was folly, to say the least of it. 

“I’ll tell you what’s up,’\Josiah makes answer, letting 
drop his words slowly and painfully, “ I was asking your 
wife why she chooses the time you’re out for going into 
selectors’ ’uts, and why” 

But he stops suddenly short, rather aghast at the 
effect of his own words. That face — during his second 
of speech all contracted and shrunk before him — cannot 
be George Drafton’s good-humoured face! It is working 
and the lips are 'twitching, as if words would fain have 
have come from them, yet cannpt find an outlet. 

It is strange that, during the sudden dead silence 
following Josiah’s revelation, the collie should jump to 
his feet and growl so uneasily. i 

Pauline’s head was bent upon the sill. She looked up, 
when the dog growled, straight into her husband’s face, 
and saw the murderous impulse in his eyes. What of 
human they possessed seemed to have died out — only 
the brute instinct remained. Then she nerved herself to 
speak while there was yet time, and the words came, 
and the strength to bring them out, though the sickness 
of a great fear was upon her. 

“George,” she said, “you must hear me first; do as 
you please then — only listen to me first. I haven’t done 
anything wrong. I could make it all clear to you now, 
but I dare not explain at this minute. If I did I should 
repent of it afterwards. Think how we’ve lived together 
io far. Don’t you know me yet? Isn’t it enough if 
1 tell you, on my honour, that I’ve done nothing you 
would blame me for? I know I am accountable to you 
for my actions, but I’m not accountable to Mr. Carp. 


JOSIAWS DREAM. 


2II 


I want you to show him you trust me. Before I explain 
iny conduct — and you I promise to explain it to, you 
alone, when we are by ourselves — I want you to take 
my hand — so — and to say to your uncle that in the face 
of all he may say, no matter what it may be, remember, 
that you-4)elieve in your wife and that you trust her. 
Will you, George? you will never regret it, dear.” 

George’s streaked discoloured face was resuming some- 
thing of its more natural hue. The human expression 
was returning. He did not speak very distinctly, but 
when Pauline stood up by his side he unlocked his 
tightly-clenched fist and twisted his fingers round her 
cold hand. 

“ You won’t make me believe evil of my wife, Mr. 
Carp,” he said with prodigious effort, “so you’d better 
not try ! ” 

Josiah looked like a baffled fiend. Even the collie 
had run away .from him, and was pushing her head 
between George and Pauline in the front parlour. He 
picked up his pipe and shuffled off with a defeated 
chuckle sardonic in tone; but the instant he was gone 
George dropped into the chair and hid his face. 

It terrified Pauline beyond measure to see that sobs 
were shaking his strong frame. 

“ George, I’m so sorry ! ” she cried. “ I’m so sorry ! 
You believe in me now, don’t you?” 

“How can I believe?” he said, his face still hidden, 
his voice broken. “ Believe or not. I’d still have done 
— ^just what I did just now. But I’ll know the rights 
of it, or by the Lord, as sure as you’re standing there, 
I’ll shoot the fellow before the day’s out ; yes, and put 
a bullet through you afterwards ! ” 

She bent over him and pulled his two hands away 
from his eyes. 

“ What, George ! look me in the face and tell me, 
sir, now — would you shoot father T* 


CHAPTER XX. 

yOSIAWS DEPARTURE, 

“ Show his eyes and grieve his heart, 

Come like shadows, so depart.” 

— Shakspere. 

The morning wears on, and Josiah is still tramping 
about after the fashion of an uneasy spirit, if it were 
given to a spirit to weigh sixteen stone. He makes of 
the verandah a sort of Totnmy Tiddler’s ground, running 
in and out of it without daring to find breathing time 
in it. The potato beds represent “home,” and as 
he steers his path among them he can hear the sound 
of earnest voices coming through the still open window 
of the front parlour; he can follow the tones, subdued, 
expostulatory, deprecatory, eager, without distinguishing 
the words, but there comes at last a sound he can 
distinguish readily, and which strikes discordantly on 
his ear. He had never heard Pauline laugh after so 
light-hearted a fashion at Wattle Villa; like the young 
Nourmahal of whom Moore tells us that — 

" Her laugh, full of life without any control. 

But the sweet one of gracefulness wrung from her soul.” 

That is the kind of laugh Josiah hears, accompanied 
by a gruffer guffaw on the part of George. To say 
that Mr. Carp is unpleasantly surprised would in no- 
wise convey an idea of his condition of mental bewilder- 
ment. There is no other solution of the mystery to be 
arrived at but that his nephew is a fool. Still, as all 
the world is not married to Pauline, it is open to the 
remaining portion of it to give due weight to Josiah’s 
testimony. When this abandoned w^oman finds herself 
discarded alike from his house and from the house 
of every respectable member of society in Melbourne, 
when even here, in the bush, he shall have contrived 
to affix that to her name which shall close upon 
her the doors of the hospitable squatters, then no 

SI3 


yOSIAH^S DEPARTURE. 213 

doubt she will begin to reflect uneasily upon her ill- 
considered rejection of his friendly offers, and confess, 
with a confession wrung from her bitterly humbled pride, 
that the punishment of her crimes is well merited, 
and that ''^r. Carp is not a man to be spurned. 
For of all ingenious forms of self-deception, that form 
by means of which Josiah retained his right of sitting 
in severest judgment upon others, and arrogated to 
himself only the right of freedom of action, was assuredly 
the most ingenious. Did his method of reasoning 
spring from an inherent obliquity of mental vision ; 
from a conscience blunted by crooked dealing; from 
an impossibility of applying to himself the maxims he 
would have laid down for others ? or did it not rather- 
have its roots in his opinion of human nature at 
large — an opinion based upon the promptings of his 
own nature in particular, leading him to the conclusion 
that restriction was the only cause of virtue, that he 
was the best judge as to the amount of restriction 
necessary in his own case, and that for such as threw 
off their restrictions openly, not warily and in secret, 
no censure, no vilification, no punishment, could be 
too great ? Always is it a matter of fact that now at 
this very instant Josiah believed himself full of a 
righteous wrath, and that had any resident on the 
Murray plains — King Cocky perhaps alone excepted — 
been in a position to ride by his side round the 
boundaries, he would have discoursed to such a resident 
on morality, respectability, and the like, with a full 
conviction that he was better qualified to deliver a 
discourse of the kind than any one else soever. 

But, while you are plotting, Josiah, how best you shall 
bring that bright, sun-loving head to the dust a counter- 
plot, which shall set yours at nought, is growing into form 
behind the mlislin curtains that you shun. You should 
remember, Josiah, with your faith in old saws, that it 
has been said that “ Two heads are better than one.” 
The heads are near enough, too, to keep the matter of 
the plot from your ears. Take another turn through the 
potato flowers — the plot is not full-grown as yet. 

“For I tell you, darling,” George is saying, with a 
face serene as that of a man who has escaped a life- 
blighting wound, “it won’t do to leave your good 
name to the tender mercies of Master Josiah ! ” 


214 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


“Oh, never mind my. good name!’' cries Pauline 
gaily ; then correcting herself hastily, “ I don’t mean 
that quite — I mean, the principal thing of all is to 
keep my father’s secret." 

George seems doubtful. 

“ It beats me, Pauline, why you never told me about it 
before. You might have known that the old man could 
have put up here. I’d have kept his counsel fast enough ; 
I’m pretty fly, you know. I’d never have let on to a soul 
that I had a father-in-law in Victoria ; and as to that, if he’d 
been hard up or anything. I’d have shared my last crust 
with him — you know I would ! ” 

“ Yes ; but George, in the first place, he would not 
even hear of my telling you. If things had not reached 
such a climax just now — if I had seen any other way 
of preventing you from rushing round with a gun 
and massacring everybody on the station, do you 
think I would have told you as it is? And in the 
second place, I’m quite sure papa’s sensitive on my 
account too, and that he couldn’t bear my husband 
to know his wife’s father — please don’t lose the thread 
of the relationship, it sounds rather like that riddle — 
was hiding away from justice. How was I to suppose 
you knew even that about him already ? ’’ 

“All the same, my old woman, it wasn’t treating me 
fairly. You didn’t give me a chance; you’ve made me 
show in very bad colours sometimes, and I’ve had a 
weight on my mind other times. I felt as if I could 
make away with myself just now ; it’s what I’d have 
done, too, after I’d had my revenge.’’ 

“You always harp upon that one theme of revenge, 
George ! It’s just the feeling I can’t understand. If 
anybody deceived me, or didn’t love me properly — 
Merci! I should say — such a person might go the 
instant I found it out; but I can’t see what’s to be 
gained by hurting people bodily, in the least.” 

“Stop ’em from deceiving anybody else. Besides, I’m 
not going to argue about it; I know what I’d do myself, 
and there’s an end of the matter." 

“Yes," says Pauline, with a short sigh, “you’ve often 
told me that. But now — about my father— what had we 
better do? You say Mr. Carp will malign me.’’ 

“ Malign you ? — the old brute ! — I should think he 
would ! I expect he saw you kiss Mr. John Smith ! I 


yOSIAH^S DEPARTURE. 


215 


feel as if I must go and shake him by the neck for 
daring to think a syllable of harm of you ! 

“ Don’t be so pugilistic, George ; and tell me, would 
it matter very much if you were to break all connec- 
tion with Mr. Carp from to-day ? ” 

“ Matter so much, my darling, that it would ruin me 
outright. I’m under no obligations to him — do you see ? 
— but every penny I’ve got’s invested in this place, and if 
I were to sell out now I should be paupered. It’s not 
so easy to pick up a billet. Don’t talk of it, my dear. 
It would cook my chances with the colt. What are you 
looking so serious about — eh ? ” 

“Nothing!” Pauline replies, stooping down to caress 
the collie’s head. She knows that to hint at Mr. Carp’s 
offers of “friendship” to her husband would be to 
bring upon him the ruin that he dreads. Again the 
tangled knot in the web of life she is spinning from day 
to day defames , its smoothness. What trickery of fate 
has allotted to her latterly this constant necessity for 
keeping something in the background ? From the day 
of her pledging herself to George the life of the old 
days past seems to have become an impossible dream 
of innocence and ease. She began by deceiving herself 
wilfully, and with her eyes open. Now perforce she 
must deceive those about her. 

“Only I don’t see my way out of it.” 

She says it half aloud, in answer to her own 
thoughts. 

“ You may trust me, my darling,” cries George, 
believing that the original dilemma is weighing upon her 
mind. “I’ve got it all settled in my head what I mean 
to do. First, I’ll get the saddles put on a couple of 
horses — one for me, one for my uncle. I’ll make him 
keep his tongue between his teeth, if he wants to keep 
a whole skin, until I get him to the selector’s. Then 
I’ll leave him outside, do you see, and I’ll go in and 
lay the whole case before your father. I know what 
I’d do in his place, and I feel pretty well sure of what 
he’ll do in his. I tell you the chances are ten to one 
that my uncle knows anything at all about your father’s 
fiasco. * If he knows that you were a Miss Vyner, that’s 
al)OUt all he does know. What’s that got to do with a 
lieutenant of the same' name who slopes to South America, 
eh? He’ll take it into his head that the old man was 


216 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


hard up, and didn’t like to be seen sponging on me, and 
that you were helping him on ,the quiet — going with tucker 
and things when I was out of the way; there’d be nothing 
extraordinary in that. Well, what have you got to say to 
it ? If you can think of anything better to be done, say 
so, for there’s no time to be lost.” 

“ I can’t think of anything, indeed ; only you must 
make me a promisrf*-^^ solemn promise, mind ! not a 
conditional one — befoi# you go.” 

“ Anything you like— but be quick about it,” replies 
George, putting his head out of the window to see that 
Josiah shall not escape him. 

“ You must promise to see my father quite alone ; try 
to adopt a different style in talking to him from the one 
you use when you are speaking about him. Please be 
wonderfully considerate. Tell him how helpless I was. 
Say that even now I am quite ready, and you too — that 
we are both ready to keep his secret. Yes, George, you 
must promise me this. Unless I thought you would 
leave it entirely in his own hands to enlighten Mr. Carp 
or not as he thinks fit, I would run to him now on foot ! 
Don’t be so long in making your promise ! Haven’t I 
trusted you wholly ? It is no exaggeration to say that I 
would rather have braved all the consequences of your 
rage just now than have told you my father’s secret if I 
had thought you capable of betraying him.” 

George still hesitates. 

“You don’t know what you want I Nobody’s going 
to lug your father off to prison, if that’s what you’re 
afraid of. I tell you, my uncle would have no scruples 
about what he might say if he isn’t told all.” 

“ Good heavens, George ! is your uncle the whole 
world ? You pretend not to be afraid of him, and I 
think sometimes he is your living embodiment of Mrs. 
Grundy. Isn’t it enough that you trust me? If you 
tell him you are perfectly satisfied, how dare he even 
question what I do? I will answer for it, that if you 
say there are good reasons for not explaining all about 
Mr. John Smith just now, he will think nothing more of 
it, and end by forgetting all about it very soon.” 

“You let him alone for ‘forgetting all about’ any- 
thing he can make mischief out of,” replies George 
Saturn neh'. “ However, I know well enough what your 
father’ll say.” 


JOSIAWS DEPARTURE. 217 

“Still, you’ll promise, George— won’t you?” she says 
beseechingly. 

When Pauline adopts a certain tone of persuasion, 
George soon relents. 

“ I’m bound to promise, my darling, because I can’t say 
‘No.’ And now, will you make me a promise too ? ” 

Looking out into the garden as he says these words, he 
sees Josiah creeping along the fen^ towards the house, 
and shuts the window with a bang.s/ Then, seating himself 
on the broad window-ledge insidcfne puts an arm round 
his wife and draws her close to his heart. 

“You think me a rough sort of a chap very often, 
I know, my old woman. You don’t know how full my 
heart is of you. You could do anything you liked wdth 
me! Why don’t you try sometimes? You know I’d 
give up anything or go in for anything to please 
you ! Only don’t let secrets come in between us two. 
You make me -a promise now you w'on’t keep any- 
thing from me any more. There isn’t a thought in my 
heart I wouldn’t lay bare to you, I tell you ! Why won’t 
you act the same by me?” • 

“Because I can^t; the circumstances are different,” 
she replies hesitatingly. “ But don’t be angry with me ! 
I won’t keep any secrets from you. The rest may come 
in time. You are very good to me ! I warned you — 
don’t you remember, one night ? — that you were risking 
a great deal by being so determined to marry me.” 

“ You always manage to give me a chill,” says George 
sadly. “ Do you think I didn’t know when I was court- 
ing you it was a one-sided affair ? But I couldn’t help 
it : if it w^ere to do again, it would be just the same, 
I know'.” 

“ Then nothing remains to be said,” she answers. 
“I think, too, that when a thing is irretrievable, it is 
w'ise to make up one’s mind that one would do it over 
again if we had the chance It is almost as comforting 
as fatalism. Don’t let us talk about our feelings, though, 
while your uncle is prowling about.” 

“By Jove! no. There’s no time to be lost either!” 
he says, pulling out his watch. “Good-bye, my darling | 
I’ll make tilings straight, take my word for it.” 

As George hurries out of the room the sun comes 
suddenly to the front. He scatters the misty covering 
which enshrouds him with some beams of true Australian 


2I8 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


intensity. He blazes forth in a white heat, illuminating 
the open pages of Pauline’s book and setting mote-like 
shadows careering across them. Pauline’s mind has 
now no more fixity than those dancing motes that whirl 
from verse to verse out into the sunshine. Instead of 
soaring with the soul of Adonias to the genius-lit star 
w'hither it would have accompanied him, it is travelling 
across the Murray plains with George and Mr. Carp. 
It is exhausting itself in speculations on the result of 
the disclosure of the secret — it is wondering at the half 
glimpse it has obtained into the darker abysses of 
human feeling. Pauline was by no means a heroine of 
the “Unhand me, villain!” type. Only a young girl, as 
yet, to whom a whole lifetime of unsettling experiences 
seems to have presented itself during the few months 
of her matronhood. Instead of feeling, bride-like, after 
her marriage, that a fuller life has begun for her, a 
life in which she can rest satisfied because of the 
incentives that hope and love and confidence set daily 
before her, she has. had, as it were, a sensation of being 
stranded at the outset of her career. She admits that 
she had no right to expect it to be otherwise, and yet 
she rebels against her selfallotted portion. In these 
rebellious moments she is bitter to George as well as 
to herself. As he had just told her, he would have 
risked everything to make her his own. Yes ! risked 
the sacrifice of her happiness, the possibility of long 
years of remorse for himself. Then comes another 
phase. The thing is done! No force after all has 
been used: George at least must have known his own 
mind, however uncertain and wavering she herself 
may have been. His love seems now so deeply-rooted 
a part of his nature, that without it Pauline cannot 
picture him to herself at all. How thousand times 
better it would be, she tells herself, to turn such a 
love to account. But how turn it to account? Shall 
she try to alter the bent of his tastes? That cannot 
be. Besides, what has she to offer him in exchange? 
Herself a dreamer, prone to indulge in speculative 
theories from instinct and association, she would be 
opposed by a sort of dead wall if she sought to awaken 
George’s mind to a sense of interest in her ideas. 
Have not the first approaches to them been tabooed in 
the days of her courtship ? Moreover, would he be the 


yOSIAWS DEPARTURE. 219 

happier were such an awakening possible? She abandons 
so fruitless a train of thought, and wishes that the 
afternoon would come quickly. Was ever so interminable 
a day ? Can nothing be done to coax it into action ? 

The dinner-hour passes by, and the afternoon lags 
on, until the shadows of the fig-trees are sprawling all 
across the path. Still no news ! Half a hundred 
times Pauline runs to the back door at the sound of 
Pepper’s faintest bark. She has tried to decoy the 
dragging hours into speeding through the minutes less 
reluctantly ; she has ushered the whole troop of dogs 
out through the garden-gate towards the river for a walk 
— she has carried enough gardening tools into the 
front path to reconstruct all the potato beds at Rubria — 
she has made a contract with herself not to look at the 
clock until she has rattled mechanically through all the 
loose pieces of music lying on the top of the piano. 
Nothing avails to make it later than four when by all 
the laws of sensation it ought to be seven. And advanc- 
ing time brings no relief, only a greater intensity of 
expectation. Now the shadows in the path have melted 
away into the universal shade thrown by the “Spirit of 
Night’s mantle grey, star inwrought.” 

Pauline sees ghastly visions of her father, of evil-eyed 
Josiah, and hot-tempered George, at daggers drawn 
on the dreary plains. She is almost fain to take the 
lantern, and roam like an uneasy Will-o’-the-wisp by the 
dark river-side, when the sound of Veno’s bark strikes 
upon her ear with a tone of blessed promise in its 
rough contentment. Down the narrow passage for 
the hundred and fiftieth time she runs, and sees, 
through the uncertain starlight, two horses trotting 
by each other into the yard. Her husband is on one — 
the other, she remembers, was bestridden by Mr. Carp 
in the morning ; it is riderless now, and George is 
leading it by the bridle. Pauline is standing by his 
stirrup in a very flash of time. 

For perhaps the first time since she has come to 
Rubria, she does not assail her husband with the 
usual formula, “ Well, George ! have you brought me 
a letter?” the “Well, George!” being the most com- 
pressed form of welcome, prior to coming to the point, 
that she has been able to evolve. To-night the interest in 
her letters pales before the greater interest in her father. 


220 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


She looks up, too apprehensive to speak, almost dread 
ing the tidings that have been so tardy in reaching her. 

“So there you are, old woman!” says George, tilting 
his leg across the saddle, and assuming a tone of 
leisurely unconcern. “And Veno, too! was a good old 
dog, he was ! Come on, Veno ! ” 

“ Oh, George ! you know how anxious I am.” 

“ Well, give a fellow breathing-time, at any rate. Here, 
Alexander McClosky, the Great Alexander — Alexander the 
Great — take the horses up to the stable ; give ’em some 
water the first thing, and turn out the filly — do you hear ? ” 

“ Now, at last, George ! ” 

There are symptoms in her tone of a perit-up im- 
patience that threatens to give way. Nevertheless George 
stalks on in front of her to the house. Suppet is laid 
out in the little back room. The ill-poised lamp is alight 
on the table, reflecting itself moon-like in the bulgy 
flanks of the station teapot. 

Pauline is too eager to be dignified. 

“ You are heartless, George ! ” she expostulates, running 
in after him and almost crying with vexation. “ It is 
such poor wit to keep me in suspense any longer.” 

“ If you only knew what a nice colour you get when 
you’re excited, old woman,” remarks George, sitting ciown 
in the arm-chair, and proceeding to pull off his boots. 
“Just run and look at yourself in the glass; it’s some- 
thing lovely— ’pon my word it is.” 

“George!” despondently, and with lips that are begin- 
ning to tremble outright, “ I believe now that you either 
haven’t seen my father, or that you’ve betrayed him. Is 
it such a pleasure to you to see me so anxious?” 

“No! I like to get you a bit excited, though. It’s 
not often you honour me with such a lot of attention. 
There — now — don’t you fluff! Everything’s as right as 
the bank, I tell you.” 

“Yes, but how? I won’t be satisfied until you’ve told 
me everything, just as it happened from the beginning.” 

She draws a chair from the table, and places herself 
exactly opposite him, that from his expression as well 
as from his words she may draw her own conclusions 
about the day’s events. 

“ First of all — was my father still at the hut ? You know 
it was nearly empty when I went there yesterday.” 

“No; he cleared out early this morning. I saw him 


yOSIAH\S DEPARTURE. 


221 


right enough/ but not at the hut. This was how it was. 
We jogged on, you see, after we’d started this morning. 
I'he old man was as mum as you please. He’d put in 
a word every now and again about the stock, but he took 
jolly good care not to breathe your name again. I didn’t 
say ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ till we’d got to the selector’s hut. 
Empty as an egg-shell, my dear! Cleaned out I At the 
township, thinks I, for a pound. I don’t know what 
Mr. Carp was thinking of, I’m sure. If we’d been on 
a desert island. I’d have been into him for a certainty! 
I’d have lambed him down, I tell you ! — I can’t stand 
that fellow’s way of looking sometimes. But Lord ! he’s 
no more heart than a chicken. You should have seen 
him ten minutes afterwards, when we were riding by that 
belt of scrub near the river ! The filly put her foot on 
^ to a long twisted stick, and it jumped up. It gave me 
a sort of a start, I tell you, but Mr. Carp turned as white 
as that tablecloth. ‘ I thought it was a snake, George ! ’ 
he said. Pon my word, I thought he’d have dropped from 
his horse. I felt disgusted with the fellow ! ” 

“All that doesn’t bring me nearer to my father,” puts 
in Pauline disconsolately. 

“That’s all coming in good time,” replies George, 
waving one hand with a sententious air. “We passed 
the homestead on our way back. I’d half a mind to 
come in and tell you not to wait dinner for us. Then 
I thought I’d never get Master Josiah on if we once 
turned in. Well, it was getting on in the day when we 
reached the township. There was the coach waiting 
at Sullivan’s all ready for a start, and who should I see 
climbing on top of it, with a swag as big as a house, 
but Pulver.” 

“ Oh, then, of course, my father was there ! Please, 
please go on quickly, George ! ” 

“ Don’t interrupt me. I can’t stand being interrupted 
when I’m in the middle of a story. Now you’ve put me 
all out. Where was I ? ” 

“You were at the hotel — don’t you remember? You 
may tease me with interest at any other time, if you’ll 
spare me now.” 

“ Oh, ah ! so I was. Well, I went straight into the 
bar — left nay uncle outside with the horses, too. I wasn’t 
going to put myself out for him. ‘ I want to see Mr. 
John Smith,’ I said to Sullivan. The fellow stared. 


222 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


I think he fancied I was on a lay of some sort. Just 
at that minute your father came out with a greatcoat. He 
gave a start, I could see, when he saw who I was. ‘ Hold 
hard, sir,’ I said — I was jolly respectful, I tell you — ‘I want 
to have a word with you before you’re off.’ ” 

“ Then he will have guessed,” murmurs Pauline ; “ poor 
father ! he will have seen that I could not keep his secret 
for him.” 

“Well, the long and the short of it is,” continues 
George, “that we went into the inn-parlour, and I shut 
the door. At first I thought there’d be a devil of a go, 
but I kept in mind what you asked me this morning. I 
told him straight you’d been seen yesterday afternoon 
sneaking out of his place, and what a ‘ to-do ’ there’d 
been— but, take my word for it, I never let on that I 
knew why he was skulking away here under another* 
name. I did say, though, that it was rough on me to 
keep me in the dark, because anything belonging to you 
belonged to me; and if he’d come out with a notion of 
trying squatting, why, the house and everything I had 
would have been at his disposal while he was getting 
his hand in — in fact, as long as he lived, for the matter 
of that. And do you know, all the time I was yarning 
I was thinking to myself what a fool I must have been 
not to guess he was your governor from the first. Why, 
you’re as like as two peas ; not about the eyes, but 

about the skin, and the way your hair grows on the 

forehead and the bridge of your nose. I never saw 
anything like it before.” 

“And how did it all end? Don’t leave anything out. 
How did he look ? Do you think he minded terribly 
being discovered? Did you make him understand there 
was no help for it?” 

“He looked rather foolish at first, but after a bit he 
talked awfully nicely — he made me feel rather soft, I tell 
you. He seemed to say it was more on account, 

lest I should ever throw anything at you, that he made 

sucl\ a point of keeping his name a secret. I think, 
somehow, he’ll be more comfortable about you now ! 
He seemed to like the way I spoke about you, I tell you.” 

' “ 'rhat pleases me very much,” cries Pauline. “ I 
think you must have s.iid all I would have liked you 
to say, though I daresay you said it in your own way. 
But what about Mr. Carp?” 


JOSIAH^S DEPARTURE, 223 

“I’m conning to that all in good time. Of course 
I let youT father down gently. I told him of what a 
scandal racket there’d be if old Carpy had the handling 
of your name. He wouldn’t even wait till I’d done. 
He pushed straight out through the bar, and came 
almost on top of Mr. Carp. He didn’t speak loud, you 
know, but he looked him full in the face, and then he 
turned to me and he says, ‘ Mr. Drafton, is this the 
gentleman ’ — you should have heard him say gentleman^ it 
was pretty rough on my uncle, mind you — ‘is this the 
gentleman who has been good enough to take my daughter 
under his surveillance?’ That was quite enough for Josiah ! 
I never saw a man look so small in my life. He wouldn’t 
come back — and you may take my tip for it, I didn’t press 
him to, either. He says you’re to send his traps after 
him to the township, for he’s going to put up at the hotel 
to-night. I think he said something or other about send- 
ing his respects to you, as I was riding off — but I was 
pretty cool to him, you may depend upon it.” 

“And what became of my father?” 

“Didn’t I tell you? He went on in the coach with 
Pulver. I expect he’ll w’rite to you, now that it’s all 
square; and I say, old woman, I’ve been thinking of a 
lot of things as I was riding back to-night.” 

“Yes?” says Pauline, with a questioning smile. “Such 
as?” 

“ Well ! such as what a mistake it is for there to be 
any confounded mysteries between husband and wife. 
Women like that sort of thing, I think. I like everything 
to be above-board. I ” 

“ Oh, so do I ! ” interrupts Pauline, “ but I like to be 
trusted despite appearances 1 ” 

“And 1 say, 1 don’t like there to be so much as ap- 
pearances even,” says Ceorge. “ I’m like that cove — what 
was he called again — Caesar, wasn’t it ? — who said ” 

“ Yes, yes, I know ! ” she cuts him short ; “ but if 
Caesar hadn’t been as great a humbug as Henry VIII. 
in that way, he wouldn’t have dared to advance such 
a pretext for getting rid of his wife!” 

“Oh, if you’re going to talk me down,” says George, 
“ I cave in. Tell Mrs. McClosky to hurry up with the 
tea, and we’ll go and have a look at the colt!” 


CHAPTER XXI, 


PAULINE’S INTRODUCTION TO THE 
MELBOURNE CUP. 

** Quoth she, ‘ I’ve heard old cunning stagers 
Say, fools for arguments use wagers.’ ” 

—Butler, Hudibras, 

Another Melbourne Cup day has come round. George, 
in irreproachable ienue, with his racing-glass slung round 
his well-fitting horsey coat and- light waistcoat, is con- 
ducting Pauline to a bench upon the lawn just below 
the stand, whence she can see everything that he con- 
siders best worth seeing upon this greatest of all great 
days in the year. He is loth to leave her sitting there 
alone, a prey to the boldly admiring eyes of passing 
bookmakers, though, by a strange contradiction, he 
likes to take her to the saddling-paddock, and, feigning 
to be unconscious of the sensation she creates, show her 
off before an appreciative audience. But then he must 
be by her side in his own person, properly to enjoy the 
tribute of staring approval that followsher progress. 

Pauline herself is bent upon enjoyment. The familiar 
has been talked down, and forbidden to show his face 
for the whole day. She has a presentiment, too, that 
siie is going to be happy. The weather is delicious. 
And only to behold the gay crowed and green lawn, 
after such a long experience of dead vegetation, with 
spectres of trees and charred stumps standing in tlie 
midst of the Rubria wastes, is to feel that existence 
is enjoyable. George’s worship, perhaps, does not count 
for very much, but the enthusiasm that her new frock 
has aroused in him confirms the sense of elation she 
has not been able to repress since she beheld herself 
in it — full length — that morning in the cheval glass in 
their room at Scott’s Plotel. In spite of familiars, 
Josiah Carp, hasty marriages, and droughts, it is still 
something to be young and stiong, to wear a new and 

224 


225 


PAULINE’S INTRODUCTION. 

very pretty toilette, and to see the fact of one’s becoming 
it reflected not only in a sympathetic cheval glass, but 
in the eyes of all the people one meets. 

“ There’s the Governor’s party coming along,” says 
George, as he stands up and raises his hat to a grouj) 
of bowing heads. “Do you see that chap walking by 

Lady M ? He’s here with his yacht; you just 

look at him, Pauline. He’s a regular tip-topper, ain’t 
he? By the Lord, I think he’s bowing to us. He 
must have mistaken you for somebody else. Though” 
(in a confidential whisper) “ there isn’t a woman here 
a patch upon' you, my old girl — that’s wj humble 
opinion ! ” 

“ Oh, don’t, George, please ! See, he’s coming to speak 
to us. I think I met him once in Sydney at a dance — 
I suppose he remembers me.” 

Before Pauline can say more. Sir Francia Segrave 
is raising his hat again and holding out his hand as 
he comes forward towards the husband and wife. The 
hawk-like nose and long drooping moustaches, the close- 
cut grizzled hair and broad shoulders — the indescribable 
poise of the head, as of a man who carries himself 
masterfully — the whole e7ise7nble^ in short, that to a 
young girl’s imagination speak of something refined and 
heroic, and that to a maturer judgment would betray 
the experienced man of the world, ot strong and possibly 
unscrupulous passions — how should Pauline not have 
remembered these? She is angry with herself as she 
feels the colour rising and spreading itself over brow 
and cheek. What a country-bred, colonial-bred person 
she must appear ! Sir Francis will go away with such 
an impression of her. 

But in spite of the inopportune blush his sudden 
appearance has called forth. Sir Francis does not seem 
by any means in a hurry to go away. He has almost 
been obliged to undertake his own introduction to Mr. 
Drafton, whom he does not even know to be Pauline’s 
husband at first. And he puts George at ease im- 
mediately by his unlimited praise of the stand, and the 
course, and the arrangements generally. These are 
subjects that, next to his wife and Victory, lie closest 
to George’s heart He makes up his mind that his new 
ac(jiiaintance is the right sort Before he has been 
five minutes in his company he has told him all about 

P 


226 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


his colt, and how he stands to win a pot of money 
upon him, but if he loses — “Coopered, by Jove I” with 
a portentous shake of the head. 

Though Sir Francis does not understand Australian 
slang, least of all George’s particular form of it, he 
gathers from the latter’s expression of face that con- 
sequences too fatal for utterance would follow Victory’s 
defeat. 

“I’ll take you to see the little horse before the race, 
if you like,” says George confidentially. “You can give 
me your unbiassed opinion about him.” 

There are very few words exchanged on the present 
occasion between Pauline and her newly-found friend. 
But as Sir Francis moves away, he asks her in George’s 
presence if she will take compassion upon an unpro- 
tected stranger, and walk with him on the lawn after 
the next race. Possibly he has looked at other women 
with exactly the same look as the one he directs at her 
while he makes his request. Such looks are as natural 
(or come as naturally after long habit) to certain kinds 
of men, as the look wherewith a narrow-eyed Australian 
snake will fascinate an inexperienced little ground-lark. 
But to Pauline it is quite a new experience. 

“Well, old woman, I shall leave you in good com- 
pany anyhow,” says George half an hour later, as he 
perceives Sir Francis coming up to claim the promised 
walk. “And mind you, if you make any bets of 
gloves, don’t you do it without consulting 7ne. I’ll give 
you the tip. Look ! I’ve marked the favourites for you 
in the first race.” 

He is off to the saddling-paddock before Pauline 
has time to answer. A few moments afterwards he is 
pointing out his wife walking by the side of “that fellow 
with the yacht, you know,” to one or two admiring 
bookmakers. It is with the joyous conviction that his 
old woman is having a good time of it that he goes 
about the serious business of the day. For all his 
belief in Victory, it is just as well to have something 
upon all the other races. George is soon so engrossed 
in the profound pursuit of backing his opinion upon 
this race, and hedging upon the other, that he almost 
forgets he has a wife to look after at all. 

And Pauline? It was a true presentiment then which 
had told Pauline a while ago that her day at the Cup was 


PAULINE’S INTRODUCTION. 


227 


going to turn out a very happy one. It is the custom in 
our cause-and-effect age to explain many psychological and 
physiological phenomena (for, of a verity, the two are 
inextricably connected) by the mysterious influences of 
magnetism. ' Spiritualists, on the other hand, will account 
for affinities by supposing the existence of an ethereal 
matter called aura which surrounds human beings, and 
attracts or repels the aura of other human beings. 

However this may be, it is a fact that, under certain 
conditions, mutual likings will start into life and develop 
with a celerity truly marvellous. The progress of an 
entrainenient (to use an untranslatable French word) 
is often swift and imperceptible as that of the rising 
tide, so that it is only after the enjoyers, or rather the 
victims thereof, are submerged by it, and swept away by 
it, that they become aware of its force. The insidious 
power does not make itself felt at the outset. 

Pauline, we may be sure, does not inquire whence the 
new stimulus may come that throws such a radiance 
over her day. But she expands, like a flower brouglit 
out into the sunlight, under its influence. It is such a 
new delight — this of being talked to by a man who seems 
to understand everything as Sir Francis Segrave does. 
Sometimes it is only by that curious, half-amused expres- 
sion in his eyes — an expression she watches for and likes 
— that she feels how entirely he understands. It is not 
that she has wanted for companionship in the course of 
her short life. Chubby, her pupil, her pet, and her play- 
thing, has been the companion of her gay and her sad 
hours. Madame Delaunay has entered into her ques- 
tioning moods, and George — poor George — has been 
her adoring husband for what seems sometimes to have 
been a dreadfully long time. Still the experience of 
being able to speak, and laugh, and think with anybody 
so manifestly clever and great and wise as Sir Francis 
Segrave — the feeling of seeing thing's from the same point 
of view, and having all one’s surroundings suddenly 
brought into harmony — all this is entirely new and delight- 
ful. It is Pauline’s innocence that allows her to yield 
herself up unthinkingly to the happiness of the hour— 
that renders it possible for her to sun herself in the 
dangerous delight of this novel and sudden sym])athy. 

To ijave the way to a good understanding, the inevi- 
table commonplaces have to be exchanged at the outset 


228 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Sir Francis goes to work, with the caution habitual to 
him, to feel his ground with his newly-recovered acquaint- 
ance. He is not a man to forget any kind of feminine 
attraction that has once come under his notice, however 
fleeting the impression may have been, and he had 
immediately connected his recollection of a young girl 
with remarkable eyes (with whom he had once danced 
on board a man-of-war in Sydney harbour) with the vision 
of the beautiful young woman seated upon the bench. 
But he is puzzled to account for the transformation. 

Was Miss Vyner married offhand by her relatives 
to some young Croesus of a squatter!^ Or was tiiis Mr. 
Drafton really her fancy man } The problem is worth 
going into, all the more that there is a charming 
face connected with it, and Sir Francis goes into it 
accordingly. 

But he sets to work very dexterously and gently. 
Pauline is led along the current without any idea whither 
it is tending. At first they talk of nothing but the 
recent voyage of the yacht in the South Seas. They 
forget that preparations for a race are going on, and 
continue to walk slowly up and down upon the least 
frequented part of the lawn. The graSs is like a carpet 
of plush, and Pauline’s train of muslin and lace trails, 
snake-like, round her feet, as she turns to begin her 
walk afresh each time. Her companion is obliged to 
bend his head a little now and then to catch her words. 
George is away in the saddling-paddock. For him, at 
the present moment, Victory is the point round which 
the whole universe revolves, and Sir Francis continues to 
describe the South Seas to George’s wife. 

“ I wish I could see it all,” says Pauline, as though 
thinking aloud, with the accompaniment of a half uncon- 
scious sigh. Like Desdemona, her imagination is taken 
captive by the 

“ antres vast, and deserts idle, 

Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven.” 

“I have never seen anything but Sydney, and Melbourne, 
and Rubria.” 

“Rubria?” echoes Sir Francis interrogatively. There 
is a peculiar quality in his voice that Pauline finds 
singularly attractive. In some people such a voice would 
sound almost domineering, but in him it has a curious 


PAULINE^S INTRODUCTION. 


229 


charm. There is a subtle . strength ‘and substance in it 
that speak of the habit of command. But sometimes 
there is a latent caress in it too, sometimes an amusingly 
ironical inflexion. It is the most cultivated voice, Pauline 
thinks, she ever heard. George is very fond of Pauline’s 
own voice, but then he is fond of everything about her. 
Compared with the refined English voices Sir Francis must 
be in the habit of hearing, she has secret misgivings about 
the manner in which hers must strike upon his ears. 

But her misgivings would soon vanish if she could 
divine w.hat is^ passing in her companion’s mind. 'Fhe 
slight precision with which Mrs. Drafton speaks, an un- 
conscious following of the careful intonation of her French 
grandmother’s conversation, give a kind of piquancy to 
her manner of speaking that Sir Francis finds as captiva- 
ting as all the rest. 

“Rubria?” he repeats inquiringly. “Is that another 
of your mushroom capitals?” 

Pauline laughs, because the epithet is accompanied by a 
look, which might be directed towards a child one was 
trying to tease. She is not susceptible, after the manner 
of Australians, to slights cast upon her native place. 

“ I’m sorry you don’t know more of Australian geo- 
graphy,” she says demurely. “ Rubria isn’t a town at 
all. It’s our station. But perhaps you don’t know what 
a station is.” 

Sir Francis loves to get as good as he gives, especially 
when he is talking to a woman. The matter-of-factness 
of women in general is one -of the reasons why he often 
prefers looking at them to talking to them. 

“ I do know what a station is, as it happens,” he rejoins, 
with an air of feigned triumph that makes Pauline laugh 
once more (she is in a mood in which laughter comes 
easily); “and I don’t mean a railway station, though I 
daresay you think I do. I suppose Rubria is as big as 
Wales. Is it marked upon the map?” 

“ Marked upon the map ! ” Pauline is laughing again. 
“Why, Rubria’s only a little bit of a station.” 

But “little bit” as it may be, Sir Francis is profoundly 
interested in it. Pauline is not in the least aware that 
in describing her surroundings she is laying bare to her 
companion a great portion of her inner life as well. She 
has not the least conception of the rapidity with which 
a man so profoundly versed in the ways of women can 


230 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


perform the mental process vulgarly known as that of 
putting two and two together. Unconsciously she has 
betrayed far more than she has any idea or intention 
of betraying. 

From an objective point of view Rubria is dreary 
enougii, with its dead and dying sheep and burned soil, 
under lier word-painting of it. How is she to guess that, 
from a subjective point of view, it already unfolds itself 
to her companion as a garden of Eden, in which she 
herself is Eve before the fall? I cannot say whether he 
carries the comparison so far as to put himself jnto the 
smooth skin of the serpent winding round the tree of 
the knowledge of good and evil. But the thought does 
flash across his mind that, after he has backed Mr. 
Drafton’s colt, and shown himself heart and soul in- 
terested in Victory’s pedigree and training, and after he 
has taken Mr. Drafton down the bay in his yacht, he 
may be invited to put through a few weeks in this far- 
away earthly paradise. 

The thought is answerable for the new turn which the 
conversation takes. Always “feeling his way,” Sir Francis 
divines" that the safest method of approaching Mrs. 
Drafton is through the intellectual part of her nature. 
He knows all the winds and turns to a woman’s heart, 
and can change his tactics, if he finds himself on the 
wrong tack, with the skill of a very veteran. 

Having held forth upon the beauty of some of the 
half-caste Maori women he has seen, just sufficiently to 
show what an intense artistic appreciation he possesses 
of beauty of form, and in a way that proves how the 
absence of mind and soul renders this beauty powerless 
to hold and to fix its worshippers, he glides off into the 
topics prompted apparently by a chance remark of 
Pauline’s to the effect that it was difficult to get books, 
especially new books, at Rubria. 

Here there is infinite ground for discussion. It 
would seem as though Sir Francis must know all 
Pauline’s favourite books from end to end by heart. 
And there comes a kind of bright interested light into 
her eyes, and the rare colour mounts in her pure cheeks, 
as the very thoughts and questionings that have grown 
out of her reading, and that nobody has cared about 
or understood of late, are put into words for her by her 
companion, with comments such as she loves, full of 


PAULlNE^S INTRODUCTION. 


231 

suggestions for her intelligent pondering of them. Who 
ever speaks of modern literature, with any kind of 
earnestness, without drifting into metaphysics? Pauline 
does not see Sir Francis’s expression as he approaches 
this quicksand. She is looking in front of her, as she 
is wont to do when she is perplexed by the sudden 

intrusion of the crushing notion of infinity into her 
poor little mortal brain. Her eyes are fixed upon 

space, and she does not feel the ardent glance that 

fastens itself at this moment upon her face. Perhaps 
if she did she would think more of present dangers 
than of incomprehensible mysteries. Though it may 
be that she would not have divined what that rapid 
glance signifies. Possibly Sir Francis does not analyse 

the impression in himself which gives rise to it. If he 
were to probe his sensations periiaps they would resume 
themselves in the feeling that this Mrs. Drafton is one 
of the most charming women he ever met, and, despite 
her remarkable intelligence, a complete inghiue. 

She is evidently unaware of her own power. And to 
fancy such a creature, with all her wealth of fresh young 
beauty and latent passion, condemned to a prosaic 
half-existence, for Sir Francis is convinced now that 
Pauline’s life is of that unsatisfying description. Sup- 
posing it should fall to him to wake the sleeping prin- 
cess in her gloomy enchanted bower? And supposing, 
among the dragons that guard the door thereof, the 
dragon of religious faith and orthodoxy should be found 
wanting? Vaguely these thoughts may account for the 
peculiar transient glance that flashes unperceived by 
Pauline from her companion’s eyes. 

When she does look up, the usual courteous, imper- 
turbable, man-of-the-world expression is all that she can 
read in them, for George is now approaching in a wild 
flurry of excitement. 

“ Good gracious, Pauline ! — don’t you know they’re 
bringing the horses up for the Cup? If you don’t both 
come along in double-quick time, you won’t see Victory 
led out.” 


CHAPTER XXII. 

VICTORY MAKES HIS NAME GOOD, 

“ They laugh that win.’’— S hakspere. 

As the “Melbourne Cup” forms every succeeding year 
the theme of impassioned writing in “dailies” and 
“weeklies” innumerable throughout the w'hole of Aus- 
tralia, 1 shall abstain from entering into a minute descrip- 
tion of the race in which Mr. Drafton’s colt took part 
in the year 187 — . To prove, however, the universality 
of the interest which this great event arouses, not only in 
Victoria, but wherever the name of Victoria is known, 
1 will relate a true anecdote of what happened in the 
month of November many years ago. 

The scene was the Bois de la Cambre, near Brussels, 
under a leaden sky. The actors, two lads of some twelve 
or thirteen years, who, meeting at a cricket-match got up 
among the English schoolboys of the place, looked at 
each other doubtfully for an instant without speak- 
ing, after the manner of English boys in general. At 
length — 

“You’re English?” says the elder. 

“Ye-es,”says the younger. Then, after a short pause, 
“I come from Australia.” 

“From Australia?” echoes the elder; “so do I.” 

The younger regards him for an instant with uncer- 
tainty. Perhaps his new acquaintance is taking a rise 
out of him. Then deliberately — 

“ Well, if you come from Australia, Who won the Cup 

The winner was immediately and unhesitatingly named, 
and the fellow-Australians fraternised on the spot. The 
“ Cup,” I may add, had only been run the day before, 
but the telegraph (recently established between England 
and the colonies) had apprised the anxious Australians 
in the mother-country of the result of the race as soon 
as it was known. 


VICTORY MAKES HIS NAME GOOD. 




If, twelve thousand miles from the scene of action, the 
Cup has the power to set patriotic Australian hearts 
beating, my readers may judge of its effect upon the 
favoured individuals who behold the great race with 
their bodily eyes. Pauline is almost awed by the effect 
of it upon the vast multitude around. There is a dead 
silence as the horses sweep round the course for the 
first time and the gay colours of the line of jockeys 
begin to separate and fall apart. It is only as they 
stride past the judge’s box on their second round 
that a confused murmur, gradually rising to a great 
and wild clamour, fills the air. Pauline is standing 
on a bench next to George, whose panting breat'n 
sounds close to her ear. Sir Francis’s tall figure, stand- 
ing on the ground on the other side of her, serves as a 
protection and support. He is watching the race with 
attentive interest, and Pauline can hear him murmur, 
“Victory, by Jove ! Victory has it!” in tones of surprised 
approval, as the horses go circling round the second 
time. Pauline, it may be observed, has not enter- 

tained the most distant expectation that Victory would 
make good his name, but as she hears her neighbour’s 
sotto voce observation, she turns her eyes for an instant 
towards George. The sight of his face almost causes 

her to cry out in alarm. It is working like the face oi 

a corpse pulled into action by galvanism. The hue 

is corpse-like, in its sickly pallor. His eyes seem to 
be starting out of his head, and his fingers tremble as 
he essays to adjust the glass through which he is 
watching Victory’s progress. 

“ George ! ” whispers Pauline, with her lii)s beginning to 
tremble ; “ George, don’t look like that. I’m frii^hie?ied.'*^ 

“Don’t speak, for the Lord’s sake 1 ” rejoins her iuisband 
in a choking voice. “ Don’t speak — 1 can’t stand it. 
Don’t you see Victory’s going to win. Victory’s got 
it, I tell you, Victory — by God — Victory!” 

He is already shouting like a maniac, while the cry 
is taken up by thousands and hundreds of thousands 
of voices. A few despairing cries of the names of rival 
horses that are close to Victory’s heels — cries angry 
and vehement, mingle with the rest, but they are soon 
shouted down. Victory^ and Victory rends fiie air. 
Pauline is sobbing. She cannot in the least tell why. 
Somebody seems to have tilted George’s hat up in 


234 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


the air. He is ramming it down anyhow, and a minute 
later Pauline sees him running, like one bereft of his senses, 
in the wake of a crowd of betting men towards the 
saddling-paddock to hail Victory’s return. 

Then her new friend turns towards her with the peculiar 
half smile in his eyes that Pauline has learnt already to 
connect with him alone. She is still a little hysterical, and 
is feeling rather ashamed of it, but there is something in 
Sir Francis’s treatment of her that is very reassuring and 
consoling. Although she has been adored by George, 
she has not known the meaning of having him aux petiis 
soins for her. In this branch of chivalry Sir Francis is 
an adept. He knows exactly the point at which a woman 
whose nerves have been upset may be treated like a child, 
and soothed and comforted. Pauline could not tell just 
what he says as she wipes her eyes. She only knows that 
he is very, very kind — kinder than anybody she has ever 
known, and that it is very pleasant to sit there by his 
side, feeling quite at her ease ; not needing to speak 
unless she is inclined ; not embarrassed by the conscious- 
ness that her eyelashes are still wet ; and only sure that 
some great, warm, sheltering influence is close at hand. 
What would she have done all alone in the unheeding 
crowd — the first experience of a crowd she has ever had 
— if he had not been there — when George rushed off and 
left her, shaken and bewildered by her emotions? 

Poor unconscious Pauline ! It is not at this stage that 
it would be possible to explain to her, with any hope of 
her comprehending the' explanation, that perhaps the fate 
of being left alone would have been really the better of 
the two. No doubt, after George had gone, her familiar 
would have come and sate beside her, and perhaps 
caused her to shed a few extra tears. But how is she 
to know that even the familiar might have been safer — 
if not better — company than Sir Francis, with his tender, 
chivalrous, careful protection of her? 

There are lessons that are only learned in the living 
school of experience, in which Pauline had not as yet 
studied her ABC. 

When George returns, which he only does after the 
numbers are up, his excitement has somewhat calmed 
down.* Joy, like grief, is exhausting, and the delirious 
triumph with which he witnessed Victory’s success has, 
as he would have said himself, “ taken it out of him.” 


VICTORY MAKES HIS NAME GOOD. 


235 


Sir Francis is obliged to hurry off to join the aide-de- 
camp who has come to bid him to lunch with the rest of 
the Governor’s party, but he cordially accepts George’s 
invitation to come and drink a glass of champagne in 
Victory’s honour at a later hour in the afternoon. 

Pauline is carried off, in her turn, by her lord and 
master, to the carriage in which the young couple have 
been invited to lunch by some w'ealthy friends of Mr. 
Carp. She is still in the condition known as that of 
“ feeling dreamy,” and answers somewdiat mechanically the 
congratulations that overwhelm her upon her husband’s 
success. George is sufficiently restored to himself to taste 
the full sw'eetness of being, at one and the same time, the 
possessor of Pauline as a wife and Victory as a colt. He 
introduces his old w^oman to all his friends, and his eyes 
sparkle with satisfaction at the effect she produces. To 
Pauline herself the whole affair is like a play, in which she 
' is called upon to act an impromptu role. She acquits her- 
self of it with full credit in the eyes of the public, smiling 
in the right place, making now and then an amusing 
repartee in her pretty 2<;;z-English English, and raising 
George’s elation to unirnagined heights. But, somehow, 
nothing seems quite real. The people are puppets, the 
society chatter is got up as a joke. The sandwiches 
and champagne taste astonishingly genuine, it is true, 
but they are make-believes, like all the rest. By-and- 
by she will wake up at Rubria on a hot-wind morning, 
and it will all have vanished — fashionable crowd, and 
gay lawn, and wild excitement. Nothing of it will remain 

— nothing, unless But wdiy should that remain more 

than the rest ? 

It will remain, however; and it wull remain because a 
Stronger will than Pauline’s intends that it shall remain. 
A couple of hours later she is again walking by Sir 
Francis’s side, but George is of the party this time. Her 
has been called upon to celebrate Victory’s triumph so 
often since two o’clock, that he leads the way almost 
mechanically, though wdth uncertain steps, to the carriage- 
paddock, where champagne naturally runs like water upon 
Cup day. From being unnaturally flushed, he has turned 
very pale, and his eyes have a singular fixity of expression 
that Pauline has never noticed in them before. He 
hardly speaks at all. When he does hazard a few words, 
the enunciation of them seems to cost him a great effort, 


236 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


and even then they are not always entirely consequent 
or coherent Pauline has never known any one to look 
or speak like George before. She has seen people tipsy 
in the streets, and in her childish days she has been 
wont, with the merciless ignorance of childhood, to class 
murderers, robbers, tipsy people, and convicts in the same 
category. To be tipsy signified to be led off disgrace- 
fully to prison by the constable. But since leaving Beau- 
Sejour Pauline’s ideas have expanded. She knows now 
that there arc euphuisms for tipsiness, which prove that 
the offence itself is by no means as heinous as her 
childish imagination had pictured it. Still, the early 
association of ideas renders the possibility of being drunks 
as connected with any gentleman whom she herself is 
ever likely to know or meet, quite out of the question. 
It is therefore with no other idea than the one that poor 
George has been too much in the sun, that she unwittingly 
draws attention to his condition by her compassionate 
insistance upon his paleness. 

“You should have held up your white umbrella, George; 
indeed, you should. I’ve seen you going about all day 
in that tall hat — and you look as though you had such 
a dixadjul headache. Doesn’t he look as though he had 
a dreadful headache?” 

Idle last words are addressed to Sir Francis Segrave, 
with a sudden tremulous note of appeal in them. George’s 
headache has given him an expression that fills his wife 
with a new and vague terror that she does not dare to 
formulate even in thought. 

He does not answer her inquiry about the headache. 
He is fumbling under the seat of the hired brougham 
which brought him and Pauline to the races in search 
of a sandwich box, and his body is swaying like that of 
a seasick passenger on deck in a rough sea. • 

“Oh, George, what is the matter? Do you feel faint? 
Are you ill ? ” 

There is sharp distress in her tone. George turns 
round with a vacant stare, and holding to the open door 
of the brougham as to the bulwark of a rocking vessel, 
eyes her with a silly smile. 

“Don’t you fluff, old girl; I’m all right.” Only he 
says dond shoe^’’^ the articulation of the being 

quite beyond him at the present moment. Pauline can 
further hear some disconnected phrases about “V'ittory” 


VICTORY MAKES HIS NAME GOOD. 


237 


and the “dash shun,” and then he lets himseh slip into 

a sitting posture upon the ground, with his back against 

the step of the brougham and his hat on one side — a 

living presentment of one of Leech’s caricatures of the 

Derby Day, that Pauline has laughed over without under- 
standing it, in the days when she possessed a nursery 
scrap-book at Beau-Sejour. 

The realisation of the caricature is anything but a 
laughing matter. As long as Sir Francis Segrave lives 
he will never forget Pauline’s face as George slips heavily 
to the ground. The bewilderment, the apprehension, 
the horror, and then the sudden agony of shame, that 
succeed each other all in the flash of an instant. Certainly 
this must be a new experience; only a woman who had 
never been brought face to face with such a catastrophe 
before could be ' so utterly helpless under it, so over- 
whelmed by it. .Whether to turn and flee, or to sink by 
George’s side and sob — whether to shield him from the 
view of his new acquaintance, or to run aw’ay to some 
hiding-place where he can never, never find lier again — 
the irresolution prompted by these mingled sensations 
betrays itself, like all Pauline’s other emotions, to Sir 
Francis’s keen glance. But to his credit be it said, after 
a lightning im[)ression of the grandly tragic j)ower of 
Mrs. Drafton’s eyes and lips, he feels a genuine and 
tender pity for her. And his pity, coupled with the 
exquisite tact that comes from what the French rightly 
call Tusage du nionde., does Pauline such good service 
in her bitter distress, that it is hardly to be wondered at 
if she thinks of him afterwards as of some ideal knight 
made incarnate in her behalf. 

In the first place, he entirely ignores the possible 
explanation of George’s condition — the hideous explana- 
tion of it that has suggested itself to her through Leech’s 
caricature, but that she would not for worlds breathe 
aloud — the miserable, humiliating explanation, that makes 
her cheeks and forehead burn with shame, as though 
she were polluted and degraded by it in her own person. 
There is riothing in Sir Francis’s .manner to convey the 
most distant hint of his connecting George’s indisposi- 
tion with any other factor but the sun. It is with the 
prudence of the serpent and the strength of the lion 
that he gently aids — almost lifts him into the brougham, 
where the victim of Victory’s exploit will, be entirely 


238 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


sheltered from the amused and knowing glances of 
grooms and coachmen. Then the air with which he 
turns to the victim’s wife is such an absolute triumph 
of acting that it actually deceives Pauline herself. “ Poor 
fellow ! ” he says. “ But you mustn’t be in the least 
alarmed, Mrs. Drafton; I assure you I’ve seen fellows 
in India taken exactly in the same way. It’s a slight 
— a very slight case of sunstroke. I’ve had plenty of 
experience in cases of the kind.” 

“But it seemed to affect his brain,” says Pauline, 
fastening her two frightened eyes upon her ally, and 
hugging herself in the belief that the horrible suspicion 
she has entertained is at least entirely unshared by him. 

“That’s one of the symptoms,” replies Sir Francis. 
Not even the shadow of a smile flickers in his calm 
grey eyes as he makes this astounding statement. “We 
must keep him very cool and quiet for a bit. I’m going 
to bandage his forehead with a wet handkerchief, and 
you’ll see he’ll be all right in another hour. About 
what time did you think of going home ? ” 

“ I don’t know ” (looking very blank) ; then after a 
pause, “We’re staying at Scott’s, you know?” 

“Well, you won’t refuse to let me see your husband 
home with you. He’ll want to get back himself as 
soon as he’s a little better, and I must see my patient 
through, mustn’t I ? May I call and inquire about you 
both to-morrow ? ” 

“ Oh, would you ? ” says Pauline, with such transparent 
satisfaction that Sir Francis can hardly repress a smile. 
“ What time will you come ? ” 

“At whatever time you will let me. Now for the 
operation.” 

While speaking he has been dipping a clean table- 
napkin drawn by Pauline from the sandwich basket 
into a can of fast melting ice, and now he proceeds to 
bind it round George’s head, which is lolling against 
the cushions of the brougham in sleepy and undignified 
unconsciousness. 

“ What the Dickensh — what the devil ! ” splutters the 
recipient of this attention, as the icy drops roll over 
his forehead and ears and trickle down the nape of. 
his neck. 

“ It’s to do your head good,” says Sir Francis firmly; 
“ you’ve been too much in the sun, you know.” 


' VICTORY MAKES HIS NAME GOOD. 


239 


George’s eyes fix themselves stupidly and glassily 
upon the strong earnest countenance that meets his 
• gaze. Then, with an unsuccessful attempt at a wink, 
intended to convey the existence of some confidential 
and secret understanding of tremendous importance 
between himself and the person upon whom it is 
bestowed, his head falls back again upon the cushions, 
his eyes close, and he sinks into a heavy sleep. 

“ We’ll leave him to sleep a bit, eh ? ” says Sir Francis, 
closing the door of the brougham, with a parting look at 
his patient huddled in the corner of it. “ There’s nothing 
like sleep for a sunstroke. And now I think you want 
looking after, do you know? I’m going to prescribe for 
you, and you’ve got to do just what I tell you.” 

And Pauline finds cushions and rugs arranged for her in 
a kind of divan, in a shady spot near the brougham, and 
a tumbler of delicious iced water, perfectly pure, presented 
to her lips — and her little flounced parasol deftly opened 
and held up just as a group of inquisitive people pass her. 
If - she raises her eyes only for an instant, they are sure to 
encounter the eyes that seem already to know her through 
and through. What is there in the expression of them that 
gives her that unaccountable feeling with regard to their 
possessor ? 

Let cleverer heads than Pauline’s divine the reason. 
The fact remains that, though her acquaintanceship with 
this man extends over a very few hours, even with the 
period of last year’s waltzes thrown in, it seems to her 
that she has known him for almost as long as she can 
remember. Oriental philosophy would account for the 
impression by the convenient word “Kismet;” and who 
can say whether Oriental ])hilosophy is not right ? Does 
not the new science of sociology deprive us logically 
of moral responsibility? and for whatever cause we 
are forced under given conditions to follow a certain 
line of action, whether because of our inherited tend- 
encies (according to the sociologists), or whether because 
of the will of the gods (according to Greek mytho- 
logy), are we not in either case the victims of circum- 
stances ? Fortunately these speculations have never 
hindered humanity from acting as though Pope’s lines 
were strictly true — 

“ And binding Nature fast in Fate 
Let free the human will." 


240 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Nor do they prevent Sir Francis Segrave from hesita- 
ing, at the close of that day, between two opposite 
courses, either of which he certainly believes himself 
entirely free to follow. The first is to set sail (or rather 
to get up steam) for a journey to South America not 
later than the morrow. The second is to stay and 
accept the consequences. 

Pauline meanwhile has no misgivings. Reviewing 
her day as she sits in solitary state in a big arm-chair 
in the fine sitting-room George has taken for her at the 
hotel, it seems to her as though her whole world had 
changed since the morning. Whatever may happen 
in the future, she will always have the certainty that 
there exists in the universe one sure friend who cares 
about her. And such a friend ! She will never forget 
the close of this eventful day. How Sir Francis Segrave 
left all on purpose to follow her and George home in 
a waggonette. How, arrived at the hotel, which was 
mercifully bare of loungers, every one being at the 
races, he had helped the victim of sunstroke upstairs 
so speedily and quietly that nobody could have guessed 
anything was the matter. How, after George (who 
seemed not to know in the least where he was, and 
who had muttered phrases that had no sense in them) 
had stumbled into the bedroom, and thrown himself 
full length on the couch, Sir Francis had stood irre- 
solute for a moment in the sitting-room when Pauline 
came out to wish him good-bye. How he had looked 
into her face anxiously when she held out her hand, 
as though it had distressed him to see her looking so 
pale and so frightened. How he had seemed on the 
point of saying something he did not say, and how, 
when she had placed her hot hand in his firm cool 
grasp, he had taken it in both his palms, and asked her 
if she would look upon him henceforth as her friend. 

“Yes, indeed,” she had replied with a full heart; “and 
I am very, very grateful for all you have done.” 

At which he had laughed. It was rather a strange 
laugh, and Pauline did not quite understand it. 

“There are no favours between friends,” he said. 
“ But tell me, how long is it since you — since you left 
Sydney? I thought I should find you there again, until 
I met you this morning.” 

“Oh, are you going to Sydney?” Pauline had asked, 


VICTORY MAKES HIS NAME GOOD. 


241 


with rather a downcast face, neglecting to answer his 
question. What if her friend should be Jamesina’s friend 
too ? 

“ No, Fm not going to Sydney. There’s nothing to 
take me to Sydney now.” He had said the last few 
words half to Pauline and half to himself. Still she had 
not gathered their full significance. “And how long is it 
since you left Beau-Sejour — wasn’t that the name of it?” 

“ A long time,” Pauline had made reply. “ Nearly a 
whole year.” 

Her voice had taken, all unconsciously to herself, an 
inflexion of weariness and dejection. Measured by 
her sensations, it seemed as though she had spent an 
unheard-of time at Rubria. And this was only the 
beginning. 

Then Sir Francis had gone away, and half an hour 
afterwards there had arrived a parcel with two or three 
new books : “ Cometh up as a Flower,” which was still 
a recent publication, and which Pauline had never seen, 
and a dainty copy of Matthew Arnold’s latest poems, 
and an almost new French novel, “ Renee de Mauperin,” 
with pencil-marks against various passages. Pauline’s 
heart beat with delight as she took up each separate 
volume. Who but her friend would have thought of 
such a treat for her? 


o 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE DAY AFTER THE RACES, 

**Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat.” 

— Shakspere. 

The trail of the serpent that is over every joy translates 
itself for George, on the morrow of the Melbourne Cup, 
by a racking headache. • Even the recollection of the 
proud position he now occupies, as the owner of the 
winner of the Melbourne Cup — a position which will 
make his namp a household word throughout the length 
and breadth of Australia — cannot alleviate his pains. 
Not even the cheerful aspect of the sitting-room, into 
which he creeps between nine and ten o’clock, there to 
discover all manner of most agreeable reminders of his 
triumph. In the first place, there is a pile of letters and 
telegrams waiting for him on the breakfast table — more 
than he has ever received before in the space of twelve 
months together. In the second, the sandy-haired waiter, 
who pompously removes the cover of each nickel dish 
that he disposes on the snowy cloth, while he announces 
“ Flounders freetes, shartobriang and pomm-di-tare-rotty,” 
with a gravity that makes the corners of Pauline’s lips twitch 
involuntarily — this same solemn waiter begs “ ’umble leave 
to hoffer ’is ’arty congratulations ” (with an emphasis on 
the “ ” that finishes Pauline off completely) “ to 

Mr. Drafton ’imself. For though I ’ad a small interest 
on the race myself,” he adds confidentially, “which I 
’ope, sir, you won’t mind my saying it wasn’t, so to speak, 
your ’orse I favoured, I’m just as pleased as though I’d 
won. I’m better pleased, in fact, for I like to see 
Victoria to the front.” ^ 

George nods good-natured but feeble assent. If it 
were not for his head, he would be curious to know 
what horse the fellow had backed. Anyhow, he shall 
not lose by his mistake. The owner of the winner of 
the Melbourne Cup must know how to give “tips” in 


THE DAY AFTER THE RACES. 


243 


more senses than one, and the waiter’s right-minded pre- 
ference for things Victorian shall be duly rewarded. 
Meanwhile, the first essential is to get hold of a tonic 
or pick-me-up of some kind, to relieve this dashed 

headache — and the next to know why Pauline, seated 
behind the breakfast tray with a book in front of her, 
should look so g/um. She hasn’t got a headache — she 
looks as fresh as a white rose. What the devil has she 
got to complain of? Isn’t he ready to get her the hand- 
somest locket in Kilpatrick’s shop — the grandest silk dress 
at Alston & Brown’s ? Is it not on her account, far 
more than on his own, that the honour and glory of 
the great event of yesterday fill him with pride and 
rejoicing? If to be the wife of the owner of the 

winner of the Melbourne Cup is not enough for her 

happiness, he would like to know what would satisfy 
her. For himself, he gives it up. George’s imagination 
indeed fails to conceive any stronger cause for joy and 
exultation than the landing of the greatest race in the 
world ! And here is his wife, who ought to greet him 
with fond rapture (like’ a kind of conquering hero), 
sitting, with a face fit for a funeral, wrapped up in 
some twaddling book. Not even reading the account 
of Victory’s triumph in the Argus and the Age^ that 
lie .damp and unfolded upon the tablecloth. Such 

conduct is really calculated to spoil all a fellow’s satis- 
faction. As if a beastly headache were not enough to 
bear at a time for any man ! 

Under the weight of his double tribulation, George 
seats himself opposite to his wife with a portentous 
sigh, and essays to arouse her attention by a series 
if ejaculations expressive of wonder and consternation, 
fls he fussily opens the envelopes containing his tele- 
grams and letters. But the expedient is not attended 
with success. When he finally looks up, the fore- 
^hortened view of a soft fringe of dark hair and eyelash, 
i straight little nose, and two firmly-closed red lips, 
s all that meets his eyes. It is evidently necessary 
to alter his tactics. 

“I’ll take a cup of strong tea, if you please, when 
you’ll condescend to pour it out for me, Mrs. Drafton ! ” 

His efforts to throw a bitterly satirical inflexion into this 
polite request do not, even to his own hearing, strike 
him as sounding quite so effective as he had intended. 


244 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Pauline, with her book still open in front of her, 
pours out his tea mechanically; her eyes return to the 
page almost before her husband has taken the cup 
from her hand. 

“ Pve a good mind to throw that dashed book out 
of the window!” is George’s next complaining observa- 
tion, wit’nout any covert irony this time. “ What new 
lay are you on to, I shouhi like to kno\v — wdiat’s the 
matter with you ? Why, you ought to be the proudest, 
happiest woman in all Australia at this moment. And 
there you sit, with a face as long as a fiddle ” — here 
George made an ineffectual attempt to mimic his wife’s 
expression — “just as if you were reading the Bible — 
upon my soul I ” 

But even in the teeth of this new form of indictment 
r'auline remains mute, only turning over another page 
with an air of being absorbed in its contents. Then 
v>*.urge makes a sudden raid upon the book across the 
Uble, and snatching it from beneath his wife’s eyes, 
throws it with violence upon the sofa. 

“ T'hafs to teach you manners, madam ! You’ll please 
answer when you’re spoken to, next time.” 

What a singular expression of face it is that Pauline 
turns towards him. In all his experience of her, he has 
never seen her look like this. There is a scornful de- 
fiance written in every line of it, and her voice sounds 
hard and incisive as she answ^ers slowly, “ I don’t want 
to learn manners from a drunkard, thank you.” 

“ A drunkard ! ” For an instant George is speechless 
with rage. How dare she? How dare she? 

“You’d better be careful how you say that again, I 
warn you!” and*this time his wife is fain to hold her 
peace, for his voice and his gesture almost threaten that 
inconceivable humiliation, a blow I She sits silently 
therefore, with an inward shrinking, as her husband con- 
tinues in the same angry tone, “You’re such born fools, 
you women 1 it’s enough to sicken one, upon my word it 
is. I’m not going to deny that I was a bit tight yester- 
day — a man doesn’t win the Cup every day of his life. 
You ought to coddle me up to-day like anything, if you 
were half a wife ; and I’m dashed if you don’t put on 
the airs of a tragedy queen and call a fellow names. 
It’s bad enough to feel like a sick monkey without that.” 

Thereupon George buries his aching head in his hands 


THE DAY AFTER THE RACES. 


245 


and groans. There is silence between, the husband and 
wife, only broken by the hissing of the tea-kettle on its 
spirit-lamp stand, and the indifferent crunching of brittle 
toast between Pauline’s teeth. All of a sudcien George 
thrusts his empty cup and untouched plate away from 
him and jumps up from the table. 

In spite of the natty suit, and well-trimmed hair and 
beard, there is something of the air that the Scotch call 
feckless in his bearing this morning. Not at all the air 
becoming the conquering hero that he feels himself 
to be. 

“Well, I’m off to the races again; do you want to 
come ? ” 

“No; I thank you.” 

There is nothing conciliatory in Pauline’s tone, and 
George’s wrath rises again. 

“No? I guessed as much. Well then, I’ll go and get 
on the*spree again. Do you hear? I’ll give you some- 
thing to talk about this time. You shan’t call me ♦a 
drunkard for nothing, I can tell you that. I’ll go and 
amuse myself; you can mope here, if that’s what you 
like. / don’t care. I don’t care a rap. You can go to 
the devil for all I care.” 

He has been adjusting his racing-glass, gathering up 
his hat and gloves, making tumultuous excursions into 
the adjoining room in search of his dust-coat and 
umbrella, all the time he has been breathlessly firing 
ofi' these disjointed sentences. Now he has reached the 
door of the sitting-room, and his hand is resting u})on 
the handle of it. Curious to say, in the midst of all 
his bluster George is really suffering acute mental pain. 
If he were to follow the dictates of his heart, he would 
be down upon his knees with his head upon Pauline’s 
lap, ready to heap opprobrium upon his own short- 
comings, willing to swear by all his love for his idol 
that this should be the first and last offence. 

But how is he to approach that cold statue? Even in 
the polished shimmer of her cool morning dress of white 
grass cloth there seems something that forbids him. 
ITere is not a sign of softening in her face. It hardly 
seems worth her while to notice his presence at all. 

Wounded affection, mortified vanity, rage and longing, 
all these struggle for mastery during the fleeting instant 
in which George remains with his hand upon the door 


246 IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 

of exit. Then he opens it violently, and rushes down 
the stairs to hail the first passing waggonette that will 
take him to the races. His parting salutation to his 
wife, whom he loves beyond expression, has been to 
declare that she may go to the devil for all he cares. 
No wonder he feels his world out of joint as he jumps 
on to the Flemington platform, just in time for a train. 
Even now he would turn back, and throw all his stake 
in this day’s racing to the wind, if he could only dare to 
hope he might be taken back into favour. But there is 
already a rush for the train, and George ended by letting 
himself be borne along with it 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

PAULINE ARGUES WITH HER FAMILIAR. 

' ‘ I have no other reason but a woman’s reason, 

I think him so because I think him so.” 

— Shakspere, 

That end of Collins Street, known as Collins Street 
East, where doctors most do congregate, with its broad 
pavements and tall houses, so uncolonial in design and 
execution, was already an imposing quarter of Melbourne 
at the period when Sir Francis Segrave looked out upon 
it from the reading-room of the Melbourne Club, 
whither he had betaken himself after breakfast, the 
morning following the eventful day at the Cup. He 
carried a pile of letters in his hand, most of which, 
judging by the gloss and thickness of the envelopes — 
for rough-edged, hand-made notepaper was not then 
in vogue — contained dinner invitations, picnic, croquet, 
dance, and fancy-fair invitations. Sir Francis at the 
present moment was the lion of the Melbourne Cup 
season. The genus known as the distinguished stranger 
was more rarely to be met with in the Melbourne of 
187 — (early in the decade) than in the Melbourne of 
" fifteen years later, and its appearance was the signal for 
a general flutter in the camps of matrons and of those 
young ladies who were out or coming out in the world. 

But dinner, picnic, croquet, dance, and fancy-fair invi- 
tations were destined* alike to meet with a courteous 
refusal. According to the French proverb which says 
that “La nuit porte conseil,” the hours Sir Francis had 
passed since leaving Scott’s hotel the preceding day 
had gone far to confirm his idea that the best and 
wisest thing he could do would be to carry into effect 
his half resolution of the evening before of clearing 
out for South America at once. For South America, 
or for any other place as far removed from Australia 
as possible. New Zealand perhaps to begin with. He 
settled in his own mind that he would start that very 

*47 


248 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


afternoon. There was a steamer leaving direct. And he 
would give orders for the yacht to follow him as speedily 
as might be. P'rom New Zealand he would take the yacht 
to Rio. It was well to have some definite goal in view, 
even though the motive for sailing from Australia should 
be much the same as the one for which we take a constitu- 
tional walk — to wit, because it is good for us. 

Sir P'rancis felt more at ease after he had registered 
this resolution in his own mind. He even glanced 
down the columns of the papers, in one of which 
Victory’s name blazed forth triumphantly in large capitals. 
The fresh longing to remain that the association of 
ideas evoked by Victory’s name aroused in him almost 
obliged him, it is true, to fight the battle over again. 
But he was so convinced that discretion was really 
and truly the better part of valour in the present 
instance, that the struggle was not of long duration, 
To put an end to it, he began to write a series of notes 
declining the aforesaid invitations for the reason of 
his unavoidable departure from Melbourne at an earlier 
date than he had anticipated. Then he looked at his 
watch. Eleven o’clock ! It could not be considered 
too early for a morning visit ; and there would be very 
little time as it was. and so much the better perhaps 
for making his adieu before taking himself off for good. 

Half an hour later the solemn, sandy-haired waiter 
was replying to Sir Francis Segrave’s inquiry whether 
Mr. and Mrs. Drafton were at the hotel. 

“ I can’t say for certing, sir. It’s my belief they’ve 
gone to the races — though Mrs. Drafton might be hin. 
I’ll hascertam, if you please.” 

It struck the visitor that this would have been the 
most rational course to take at the outset, but he made 
no comment. He stood stroking his moustache in the 
hall below, after a fashion peculiar to him in moments 
of doubt and indecision. If Mrs. Drafton should be 
really out, he wondered whether he would find the 
resolution to pen a few farewell words upon a card and 
leave it with the waiter. He was bringing himself in this 
direction up to the point of feeling for his pocket-book, 
when he of the sandy hair returned. 

“ Hif you’ll be so good as to step upstairs, sir,” he said. 

In Greek mythology, the victims of the vengeance of 
the gods' were ever oppressed by a dark foreshadowing 


PAULINE ARGUES WITH HER FAMILIAR. 249 

of the irrevocable destiny that lay in wait for them. 
For all we know, Paris and Plelen may have wept for 
pity of the sorrow and bloodshed that their flight would 
bring upon the world, even at the time when it seemed to 
them that tlie world was well lost for love. But they could 
not help themselves, for a stronger than they had decided 
their course ; and no doubt they admitted that there were 
“compensations.” Still the haunting sense of threatening 
evil miist often have hung over them like a cloud. 

In the same way, as Sir Francis deliberately ascended 
the staircase of Scott’s Hotel in his correct morning suit, 
usiiered to the door of Pauline’s sitting-room by the 
solemn, sandy-haired waiter, a curious presentiment, as 
of some danger he could not avert, and could only have 
explained as Mrs. Nickleby explained her pain, by saying 
that she felt it somewhere in the room, mingled itselt 
with the satisfaction he could not refrain from feeling 
at the certainty that he should meet Mrs. Drafton face 
to face once more before leaving her for ever. The presen- 
timent was stronger than ever as he reached the top of 
the stairs, and was answerable for the expression of his 
face and the tone of his voice as he entered the room 
where Pauline was seated. 

“How d’ye do?” he said, in the most conventionally 
courteous tone he could assume, as she half rose from 
her seat to greet him. “ I’m so glad you haven’t gone to 
the races. I should have missed you altogether. I’ve 
come to — to say good-bye.” 

“ To say good-bye ! ” echoed Pauline ; there was sur- 
prise as well as dismay in her voice. “ I didn’t know 
you were going away so soon.” 

She had not stirred from her seat since George had 
left her an hour ago, and the book in which she had 
been so apparently absorbed was still lying where he 
had thrown it on the sofa. She had been arguing with 
her familiar ; and she was not sure, even now, that this 
intrusive personage had not had the best of the argument. 
Her familiar had been making, indeed, all manner of sug- 
gestions. “Why should things be so unevenly balanced?” 
it had said. “ You have your own wants in life, your 
own individual happiness to consider. Wiiy should you 
go on eternally forcing yourself to maintain your husband 
in a fool’s paradise. Will you act the dreary comedy 
throughout all the ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years 


250 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


of life you may yet have to drag, along yout existence?” 
Pauline had shuddered at this suggestion. As long as 
we are in our teens, ten years seem an appalling stretch 
of time to take into consideration. 

“It is not even just to him, to your husband,” the 
familiar had continued ; “ it is an unnatural state of things, 
and from pitying him, you will come to dislike, and 
perhaps to hate and to loathe him. It is very much 
his own fault. He would have you — coule que coUte^ as 
your grandmother said, and he knew that you only mar- 
ried him out of gratitude. He took advantage of you. It 
was not generous. It was hardly honourable.” “But 
what am I to do ? ” Pauline had said in despair. “ Do f 
there are a hundred things to do,” the familiar had 
replied scornfully. “You are young and strong; you have 
a good pretext now for running away ; your husband was 
tipsy yesterday (Pauline shuddered again) — it won’t be 
the last time — and he told you to go to the devil this 
morning; he would have struck you if you had told him 
once more that he was a drunkard.” 

After the familiar had harped upon this theme a while 
longer, various schemes had suggested themselves to 
Pauline’s brain. She would write a long explanatory 
letter to George. Even while she was concocting the 
phrases of it in her mind, especially the one in which 
she would adjure him to be happy and to forget all about 
her, tears of pity for him started into her eyes at the 
vision of his finding her epistle and reading it all by 
himself. . But it was the most just thing she could do. 
He would suffer — of course he would suffer (it was 
curious how the tears continued to well up during this 
phase of her reverie); but had she not suffered too? — 
and he would get over it She herself would already 
be far on her way, for she intended to return forthwith 
to her grand’mhre and Chubby. George had given her 
plenty of money to spend in Melbourne, and she would 
pack up her things in a very short time. Supposing 
she were to take the long overland route to Sydney to 
throw George off the scent ? There were coaches part 
of the way, and she could walk part too. She would 
write to Beau-S^jour at once. Grand’mbre would keep 
her secret. Oh, what a welcome would await her I 
Perhaps poor grand’mere half expected her. There would 
not be the least sparkle of triumph in her eyes (at least 


PAULINE ARGUES WITFI HER FAMILIAR. 251 

not at first), only she would hold out her arms to her 
foolish child. Pauline thought now of a flaming oleograph 
on the wall of her Uncle Chubby’s nursery, representing 
Noah, in a gown of brilliant Prussian blue, drawing in 
the dove that had flown from the Ark, but had found 
“ no rest for the sole of her foot ” on the wild waste of 
waters without. Pauline would be the returning dove, 
and Beau-S^jour would be her ark of refuge. But 
should she start off at once ? Action of some kind 
was necessary. To sit brooding with her familiar in 
that strange room, while the exasperating clock on the 
mantelpiece took hold of her unspoken phrases and 
ticked them forth with monotonous persistence, was 
fast becoming unendurable. She felt restless and reck- 
less. It was just when she had reached this stage of 
her reverie that there was a tap at the door, and Sir 
Francis Segrave was ushered in. 

After announcing his speedy departure, in obedience to 
the resolution already recorded, Pauline’s visitor seated 
himself on the sofa, next to the discarded book. He 
held his hat upon his knees, as though to remind 
himself that his time was limited, and said, though with 
less determination than at the outset, “ Well, to tell the 
truth, I didn’t know myself that I should have to be off 
so soon. But I’ve had letters from home.” 

It was on the tip of his tongue (to use a familiar but 
very expressive mode of speech) to say that he had re- 
ceived a telegram from home — cable communication being 
as yet not completed between Europe and Australia — 
but he remembered himself in time. 

His announcement was followed by a moment of 
complete silence on Pauline’s part. Sir Francis waited, 
while the exasperating gilt timepiece on the mantelshelf 
whirred and buzzed laboriously as a preliminary to bring- 
ing itself up to the point of striking half-past eleven. 
Then he raised his head, and directed one of his rapid, 
searching glances at the mute figure seated opposite to 
him. As his eyes took in the forlorn form and its 
surroundings, a curious feeling, quite new to his experi- 
ence, came upon him suddenly — a feeling of great pity 
and tenderness, that had nothing to do with the other 
stronger, more personal, more selfish sensation he had 
been aware of hitherto. It seemed as though this child, 
or girl, or woman, for she was all three, was in sad 


252 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


want of some one to look after her. What did her 
husband count for? To Sir Francis’s contemptuous 
fancy, George, whom he had seen for the first time 
yesterday (and then only in the worst light in which 
that unfortunate young man had ever shown himself), 
whom he found absent now for the day, while his wife 
was sitting alone in a strange hotel, her eyes shining 
with the traces of recent tears, Mrs. Drafton’s husband 
counted for nothing, or -for worse than nothing. And 
yet he represented apparently all the protection, com- 
panionship, support, and counsel she possessed in the 
world. The sole staff' she would have to lean upon 
through the long years to come — for surely she was 
only on the threshold of womanhood as yet. In her 
cool white frock of glistening material, with an old-world 
ruff encircling her polished throat, she looked just as 
though she might have stepped out of some high-bred 
canvas of Van Dyck’s; she appeared centuries old in one 
sense, and not very many actual years old in another. 
The same quaint inconsequence might be traced in her 
manner and tone of thought. So prematurely old and 
logical when some abstract question was under discussion, 
so unpractised in all the ways of the world, so naive 
and almost childish with relation to ordinary topics and 
conduct. Even in the present instance, it was absurdly 
unconventional and unguarded to sit there, with her red 
lips quivering like a child disappointed of a treat. Sir 
Francis could not divine that Pauline had been through 
a scene, and that she was unnerved and unhinged by the 
suggestions of her familiar. He only saw that she was 
lonely and unhappy, and wanted, in homely phraseology, 
“ cheering up.” The reaction that was taking place in 
his sentiment threatened to be the most dangerous 
manifestation of it that had as yet occurred. But it took 
a specious and treacherous form that deceived even his 
own keen understanding. He had been through two 
phases already. In the first one, it is to be feared that 
Pauline had appeared to him in the light of fair game, 
as any other charming young woman might have appeared 
in the like circumstances. In the second phase, her 
innocence, her helplessness, her entire trust in him, had 
touched some hnaccustomed chord in his nature. It 
was during this phase that the South American scheme 
had taken shape in his mind. It had still held good 


PAULINE ARGUES WITH HER FAMILIAR. 253 

when he came to pay his farewell visit. But now the 
third phase — the most fatal of all — was growing upon 
. him. Supposing he were to stay for a while, and watch 
over this child or this woman? Stay for the sake of 
giving her chivalrous protection and sympathy and 
counsel. As for the consequences — but why measure 
the consequences ? It would be sweet to have her 
letters — if nothing else. And she was in such sore need 
of a trusty friend. 

It was with inconceivable rapidity that the foregoing 
train of reflections passed through Sir Francis Segrave’s 
brain. The pause had been only of short duration, and 
Pauline had barely had the time to bring her voice under 
control before he was speaking to her again; only this 
time he said nothing about going away. 

“What did you intend to do to-day?” he asked her, 
somewhat abruptly. 

Pauline raised her head. “ I don^t know.” Her voice 
had taken rather a plaintive intonation. “ I haven’t 
thought.” Then with a sudden gleam of animation — “ But 
I’ve got those lovely books you sent me; I’ve begun 
‘Ren^e de Mauperin.’ It’s going to be wonderfully in- 
teresting.” 

“You don’t know any one in Melbourne?” 

“Not a soul, excepting George’s uncle; but he’s in 
New Zealand, and — and he’s horrid.^^ 

“Well, /don’t know a soul either, excepting those people 
I was with yesterday, and though I must leave Melbourne 
soon, I have the whole day on my hands. Do you know 
what — it would be very nice of you, very charitable *00, if 
you’d take me round and show me some of the sights. If 
you knew any friend who would like to accompany you ? ” 

The last phrase was flagrantly a sop thrown to Mrs. 
Grundy, who, for all he knew, might be a respected 
acquaintance of this charming young matron’s. 

But Pauline, as Mrs. Croker had once said, belonged 
to a set that had no principles. She had heard very little 
of Mrs. Grundy in the course of her free and happy life 
at Beau-Sdjour; and as regarded the conduct of married 
women, Fifine’s affirmation, that une femme mariee pent 
tout faire^ was the only rule of conduct she remembered. 
In her present mood, escape from her familiar seemed 
the most urgent necessity of all, and Sir Francis’s pro- 
position opened the pleasantest door of escape she could 


254 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


imagine, now that the execution of that scheme of an 
immediate departure for Sydney must be cieferred for 
a day or two. That Mrs. Grundy, who is ubiquitous 
enough to haunt even the rare spots upon our all too 
little planet in which “ one does not know a soul,” should 
frown upon the proceeding, did not, to tell the truth, 
present itself to her mind. Even as regarded her present 
relations with George, it was to his advantage that she 
should escape from the ennui of a solitary day in a strange 
hotel. Ennui always brought the familiar in its wake, 
and the familiar vs^as George’s worst enemy. So that for 
him, as w'ell as for herself and for everybody concerned, 
an hour or two delightfully and iniproDingly spent in 
Sir Francis Segrave’s society was the very best thing, that 
could be thought of. 

“No, I haven’t any friends,” she said demurely, “and 
I don’t even know what there is to see in Melbourne ; 
but we could find somethings I’m sure.” Her eyes were 
dancing as she spoke, and her visitor was fain to smile 
in spite of himself. 

“ Of course we can find something,” he repeated, with 
an air of decision that seemed to settle the question beyond 
dispute. “ I’ve heard there’s a picture gallery at the public 
library here. Have you seen that ? ” 

“No; and I’ve wanted to for ever so long.” 

“Then we’ll go there at once.* By-the-bye, when 
do you expect your husband home — with another tale 
of Victory? There’s scope for a jeu de mots of some 
kind in tale of Victory, isn’t there ? — though I don’t quite 
see how it’s to be worked up.” 

“ Perhaps it will be a tale of defeat,” said Pauline, 
laughing. The sunshine had come back into her face 
with astonishing celerity. “But I don’t suppose George 
will come away before the races are over.” 

“H — m” — a great deal of expression may be some- 
times condensed into a “H — m” — Pauline could not quite 
divine what Sir Francis’s “H — m” might signify in the 
present instance. But he jumped up suddenly after 
littering it, and pulled out his watch. 

“I must go to the club first and write a note — from 
there I will go straight to the library. Will you be there, 
at the entrance, in three-quarters of an hour exactly? I 
don’t know, of course, whether you’re more z/«punctual 
than the generality of your sex.” 


PAULINE ARGUES WITH HER FAMILIAR. 255 

“ I’ll be exact, I promise,” said Pauline, smiling ; but 
Sir Francis insisted upon making her go over the 
arrangement again, to be certain that she understood 
it clearly. She must not be guided by the noisy clock, 
which was at least ten minutes slow. And if she took 
a waggonette — which would be the best way — she must 
allow ten minutes for the drive; and she must be sure 
to ask for the public library, and not for any picture 
gallery whatsoever. 

Pauline was just in that stage of liking when every 
fresh trait of character in the person liked is a fresh 
charm. In this stage even what would be considered 
foibles in another person have a certain fascination, 
and the precision that might have appeared almost 
“ finiken ” (in the idly-busy sense of the word given to 
it by certain authorities) in an indifferent acquaintance, 
seemed very attractive and taking in this big hussar- 
looking individual who had taken her under his protec- 
tion. She did not know, however, that this insistance 
on Sir Francis’s part was due in a great measure to the 
fact that he entertained very unflattering doubts as to 
her capability for taking proper care of herself. If it 
had not been for Mrs. Grundy, who might possibly 
be in league with the solemn, sandy-haired waiter, he 
would have carried Mrs. Drafton off upon the sight- 
seeing expedition there and then, without further demur. 
But he told himself his other plan was the better of the 
two. As he stood up to go aw'ay, Pauline held out her 
hand to him mechanically. He bent over it a n:ioment 
with a courteous bow. The Polish custom, which enjoins 
a gentleman visitor to kiss the hand of his lady hostess 
as he bids her adieu, flashed across his memory as 
his fingers closed upon it. Bht Poland is a long way 
from Victoria. He relinquished the supple little hand 
after a warm pressure, and said gravely — 

“ I am very glad my plan meets with madame’s • 
approval.” 

Then he left the room swiftly, went down the stairs 
with a deliberate air, like that of a man who has been 
paying the most conventional of morning calls, and in 
his clear male voice ordered the driver of the waggonette 
in waiting for him outside to take him to the Mel- 
bourne Club. 


CHAPTER V. 

A RED-LETTER DAY. 


Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee 


ft 


Jest and youthful jollity, 

Quips and cranks and wanton srm1»s, 
Nods and becks and wreathM smiles,' 


—Milton. 


“He was pleased that his plan had met with madame’s 
approval.” Pauline smiled to herself as she repeated the 
words in her own mind, bounding into the adjoining 
room to prepare herself for this delightful expedition. 
How could she do otherwise than approve it? Ask the 
caged lark if he approves a free flight across the wooded 
plain, the schoolboy in durance vile if he approves a 
race across the grassy common. Pauline could hardly 
steady herself for the necessary operation of “ putting on 
her things.” The gloomy reflections of this morning, the 
scene with her husband, the suggestions of the familiar, 
all were swallowed up in the contemplation of the few full 
and happy hours in store for her. The past and the future 
were forgotten. There was only the present to think of. 

George was accustomed to say to his wife, with a 
certain shrewdness of his own, “You’re like that chap 
in the fable, my old woman, that chap who went plump 
into a well while he was looking at the stars. I 
expect you know a lot of things I don’t, but you don’t 
see farther than your nose sometimes, all the same.” 

In the present instance, Pauline certainly did not see 
farther than to the end of the visit to the library. The 
runaway expedition to Sydney was becoming fainter and 
fainter. Perhaps things would fall back into their old 
routine after all. Sir Francis would have to go away, 
and Rubria would close round her again, and all would 
be almost the same as before, only that day would be 
so much saved from Time and Fate. Farther than this 
she did not look ahead. 

The getting ready was somewhat impeded by the 


A RED-LETTER DAY. 


257 


flurry of Mrs. Drafton’s mind. She bethought herself, 
however, of looking out of the window before deciding 
upori her toilette. As the aspect of the streets be- 
tokened a rising hot wind, sweeping the warm dust 
against the passers-by, she wisely retained her dress of 
cool white grass cloth, from whose glossy surface the 
dust could easily be shaken off. A small mantilla of 
black lace, of a kind much affected in those days, 
covered her shoulders. Every woman would forgive 
her for hesitating in the choice of the bonnet that 
was to complete this simple costume. The race-bonnet 
of yesterday, with its dainty bunch of blush roses 
embedded in soft clouds of hazy blue tulle of the hue 
of the summer sky, had been such an assured success ! 
But it was too appr^tt^ as Fifine would have said — it 
was curious how Fifine’s taste exercised its sway upon 
her young mistress even at this distance — for the simple 
pleasures of the programme her friend had prepared for 
her. Pauline laid aside the race-bonnet with a heavy 
sigh— rit was such a very becoming one — and turned 
resolutely to her travelling hat of black straw, of sailor 
shape, with a little anchor of real silver fastening a band 
of black velvet round it for its only decoration. She 
put it on, and thus attired she sate watching the clock, 
allowing for an ample ten minutes the other way, until 
it was time to start, and with exaggerated punctuality 
was mounting, a quarter of an hour later, the flight of 
steps leading to the entrance hall of the public library. 

But, punctual as she was, Sir Francis was there before 
her. 

“I hope you have not been doing the pied de grue 
for long,” she said. 

“ No — unless you want me to say, like the cabman in 
Punch, that ‘missing of your pretty face made the time 
seem three kej^arters of an hour.’ But come along — only 
you’ll have to surrender this first.” 

He took the little flounced parasol from her hand, and 
saw it bound up by the guardian in fraternal proximity 
with his umbrella; then he hurried her through the long 
dimly-lighted corridor leading to the picture gallery. The 
hall was almost .empty of people, and it was with a 
feeling of unconstrained enjoyment, such as she had not 
known since the Beau-Sejour days, that she looked up 
and down its promising length as she entered. 


258 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


“ Oh, what a lovely lot of pictures ! I had no idea 
there were so rnany. And now you’ll read them for me — 
as Chubby used to say — won’t you?” 

Sir Francis Segrave’s art education dated from before 
Pauline’s birth. It was inherited as well as cultivated, 
and the possession of an ancestral collection of valuable 
pictures had been an incentive to study and research in 
public and private galleries- and museums in every country 
in Europe. In presence of Pauline’s wonder and delight, 
he felt the kind of compassionate tenderness that leads 
us to say, “Yes, very pretty, dear!” to a child who brings 
us some “ Book of Nonsense ” mdnstrosity upon a slate 
for our admiration. For the Melbourne picture gallery 
was as yet in a somewhat elementary stage. The Pilgrim 
Fathers and the Sunset at Rotterdam were ^>ttll the pride 
of the collection. Even the enlarged Sunday-school card, 
known as Moses descending from the Mountain^ had not 
taken up its ambitious position opposite the far finer 
picture of the Brigands. And the greater number of 
charming and valuable paintings since added were still 
wanting. Nevertheless, Sir Francis could not find it in 
his heart to throw the least chill upon his companion’s 
enthusiasm. He did not even have the air of making a 
concession as he stood with her against the balustrade, 
and saw her eyes wander with keenly interested delight 
over the figures in the Pilgrim Fathers., only he could 
not refrain from saying — 

“There’s a strong family resemblance, don’t you 
think?” 

“Ye — es!” said Pauline hesitatingly. “One would like 
to cut out one or two of the pilgrims, and make a 
picture of them alone.” 

“'I'hal’s a very just point of view,” said Sir Francis. 

He said no more about the Pilgrim Fathers, but he 
made Pauline s^at herself next to him when they came 
to Rachel going to the Well, and gave her the first 
lesson she had ever received upon the subject of what 
constitutes a work of art. The topic was inexhaustible, 
and there was something singularly gratifying to the 
expounder in the rapt and whole-hearted attention mani- 
fested by his audience of one. Pauline felt indeed as 
though a new world were unfolding itself before her — 
as though she were being taught to use a fresh sense, the 
possession of which she had never suspected before. Sir 


A RED-LETTER DAY. 259 

Francis essayed to describe to her the signification of 
the plein air scliool of Paris, wliicli he held lo be the 
truest and strongest of all — but declared himself at the 
same time an eclectic in art (the meaning of which term 
he had to explain for her). Then they slowly made the 
tour of the pictures, while he asked her random questions 
in unexpected places, to see how much she had retained 
of the signification of such terms as “ texture,” and 
technique, values, distances, and atmosphere, as applied 
to the various paintings. She came almost too triumph- 
antly out of the ordeal — to her self-constituted professor’s 
thinking, that is to say. Her whole mind musi have 
been absorbed in the subject he had been treating, to 
the exclusion of everything else. Besides being a ciiarm- 
ing woman, she was a surprisingly good child. 

He sighed — he hardly knew why, as he came to this 
conclusion, and stroked his moustache with the gesture 
peculiar to him when he was thinking abstractedly, d'hen 
he pulled out his watch abruptly — as he had done before 
— and interposed it between Pauline’s eyes and an 
engraving of Briton la Riviere’s upon which they were 
fastened. 

“What a pitiless person you are. Do you see it’s 
nearly two o’clock ? ” 

“Oh, and you’re hungry!” cried Pauline penitently. 
“But who could have dreamed it was so late? I’m 
going back directly ” 

“ Ba«k whefe 

“ Back to the hotel, of course.” 

“ There’s no ‘ of course,’ that I can see. You must 
be hungry too. Please don’t say you’re not.” 

“Oh! but -I af?i. I’m very hungry.” 

“That’s rights Only we haven’t seen half we’ve got 
to see yet. We’ve hardly begun. We must get lunch 
somewhere, and then start afresh.” 

“Ye— es,” assented Pauline hesitatingly. “It would 
be very nice, only ” 

In her own heart the project srhiled at her, as Madame 
Delaunay would have said; but the breaking of bread 
en tete-d-teie with her friend did not seem quite the 
same thing as going to see the pictures under his escort. 
Yet why should there be more impropriety in eating a 
sandwich with him than in criticising the Piigrhn Fathers 
by his sidt'? Pauline could not decide this knotty point 


260 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


to her own satisfaction, and as it was not of a nature to 
be “gone into” with her companion, she put it aside 
and held her peace. 

“Are there no grounds about here, no nice, pretty, 
shady sort of place, where one might take something?” 
inquired Sir Francis. “We could have a little picnic all 
to ourselves ; and you need a rest now. Your head is 
swimming with all those pilgrims — I can see it is.” 

The vision of a grassy couch under some spreading 
tree, in the soft warm air without, and a charming a/ 
fresco lunch in the company of her friend, offered as a 
substitute for the highly peppered cutlets that the solemn, 
sandy-haired waiter would set before her in that big, 
dreary, solitary sitting-room at the hotel, was too tempt- 
ing to be resisted. Pauline said as before, “It would be 
very nice, only ” 

The “only” was the last faint protest she found 
occasion to utter. Sir Francis did not seem to notice 
it. He piloted her straight out of the building, hardly 
giving . her time to reclaim her little flounced parasol 
on the way, hailed a passing waggonette with a likely- 
looking horse, and made her get into it. The waggonette 
was covered, in prevision of the threatened hot wind — 
which turned out to be a mere pretence of a wind after 
all — and Pauline had it all to herself, for Sir Francis 

preferred going upon the box to consult with the driver. 

Pauline allowed herself to be driven along without 

making any comment. By - and - by the waggonette 

stopped before a great pastry-cook’s shop in Bourke 
Street, and her friend went inside. In an astonishingly 
short space of time a small hamper was brought out. 
But while it was being packed, Sir Francis had come 
more than once to the back of the waggonette, with 
the expression of an anxious paterfamilias on his face, 
to put his head inside and address to the occupant such 
curt and mysterious questions as the following : “ I sav, 

are they to put mustard in the sandwiches? Currant- 
cake or seed-cake ? Do you like strawberries and cream ? 
I can get a jar of them put up if you do.” 

“I love them,” said Pauline, laughing at his earnest 
expression. 

When he was gone into the shop again upon this 
final errand, she had a sudden glimpse of a face she 
remembered. It was that of the florid-cheeked, precise, 


A RED-LETTER DAY, 


261 


kindly gentleman who had sate next to her at Josiah 
Carp’s dinner-table, and who had talked to her so 
amiably and patronisingly, taking her, as it appeared 
afterwards, for a schoolgirl upon a holiday excursion. 
He paused for a moment in front of the shop-window, 
looked thoughtfully at the placard announcing fresh 

strawberries and cream, stroked his chin, hesitated, and 
went on. 

Pauline’s cheeks flushed crimson as she saw him. 
She retreated to the farthest corner of the waggonette, 
her hands clasped nervously round the flounced parasol, 
her heart beating tumultuously, “ Oh, then, I am doing 
something wrong — very wrong,” she said to herself, “or 
I could not shrink so from being seen.” 

Her cheeks were still burning when her friend re- 
turned. This time he got inside the vehicle. The 

oppression of the terror she ,had felt kept her silent and 
almost stern as the waggonette rolled swiftly on its way, 
out beyond a place called Fitzroy, through roads all 
unknown to her, on and on for what seemed an inter- 
minable way, until it stopped before the gate of a park- 
like enclosure, which the driver said was called the 
Royal Park. Here all seemed so bright that Pauline’s 

spirits rose again. The Royal Park was a place 

strangers went to see as they went to see the public 
library. Between going to behold living anirrials, or 
mute pictures, the distinction did not seem very great. 
Of course there was the lunch to be considered first, 
but that was a detail. 

After Sir Francis had helped her out of the waggonette, 
they wandered a^out for a time upon the slippery grass, 
beneath the sombre native trees and shrubs. It took 
a certain amount of preliminary reconnoitring to hit 
upon a place , shady enough, and cool enough, and 
secluded enough, and attractive enough, from every 
point of view, to serve as a background for the im- 
promptu picnic. But at last such a spot was found. 
Then when the hamper had been brought, and the 
driver had retired to the society of his horse and his 
pipe with the satisfactory reflection that he had a good 
job on, Pauline, laid the cloth. Sir Francis wanted to 
do it all himself, but she insisted upon making a sym- 
metrical arrangement of the sandwiches, the cake, and 
the strawberries and cream upon two table-napkins 


262 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


spread upon the grass in readiness for them. The only 
thing she complained of was the completeness of the 
arrangements. 

Nothing had been forgotten. There were plates and 
knives and glasses and spoons, and even an extra cork- 
screw, evidently designed for the opening of a cunning 
little bottle of champagne that fitted into a socket in the 
hamper. And there was cool soda-water fresh from the 
ice-chest There was no scope for the display of the 
quality known as being equal to an emergency, there 
being indeed nothing in the nature of an emergency 
to contend against. True, some excursive red ants, 
with jointed backs, crawled upon the corner of the table- 
cloth to reconnoitre the strawberries, but Pauline held 
out a twig invitingly to them, and then hurled it into 
the far distance with the deluded insects clinging to it ; 
and a highly-flavoured pod, ^reen and viscous, fell from 
a peppermint-tree plump into the dish of strawberries 
and cream, and had to be fished out. There were also 
some mosquitoes, which would not allow themselves to 
be clapped to death between Pauline’s ungloved palms, 
but swung themselves away every time she essayed this 
mode of treatment upon them as though her hands had 
represented a kind of Tommy Tiddler’s ground specially 
devised for the entertainment of adventurous insects. 
But despite these little breaks, the picnic was a great 
success. The threatening hot wind of the morning had 
subsided here into a warm aromatic breeze. The air 
was dancing and shimmering, as though liquid light 
had been rippling through it. From native myrtle to 
lightwood, from gum to wattle tree, minas and parrokeets 
were soaring and swooping, filling the air with their 
joyous squeaks. The crickets were whirring as though 
they had set into motion the innumerable wheels of 
some miniature machinery beneath the soil. Every- 
where life was rampant. Birds and insects piping 
through their day without thought or knowledge of a 
morrow. When lunch was fairly over, Pauline was in- 
spired to suggest that her friend should have a smoke. 
It was all that was needed to complete his sensuous 
enjoyment. With his back against the trunk of a tree, 
and the cigar smoke circling in slowly-dissolving wreaths 
round his uncovered head, he looked from between his half- 
closed eyes at the charming picture of the young woman 


A RED-LETTER DAY, 263 

half reclining on the grass in her white frock. Paniine 
appeared to him now in yet another light, and uic 
hackneyed lines about Cleopatra, that “Custom could 
not stale her infinite variety,” came into his mind in 
connection with her. All the sadness of the morning 
had vanished. Even the vein of serious thought and 
intelligent ruminating was no longer discernible. Like 
a true child of nature, she gave herself up to the joy 
of the hour. It would almost have seemed as though 
she had not even outgrown the ga 7 nm phase of her exist- 
ence, for after a very short rest, she was roaming about 
in search of manna, of which she brouglit a dainty 
heap upon a lake-red gum-leaf as an offering. 

“Do sit and talk to me a. little,” said Sir Francis, 
in answer to her magnanimous offer to show him where 
the manna was procurable. “ How can you expect a 
poor old fellow like me to run about after those crumbs 
of sweets? If you’ll sit still and be good I’ll tell you 
a story.” 

“ A story ? Oh yes, pleased 

She was down upon the grass again in a moment, her 
eyes glowing with expectation. 

“ Now, when are you going to begin ? ” 

Sir Francis had thrown away the stump of his cigar 
and straightened his back against the tree. In the 
strong afternoon light, Pauline could see the grizzled 
threads interposed in the close-setting crop of dark 
hair that covered , his head. There was grey in his 
drooping moustaches as well, and there were lines in 
his forehead and around his eyes. But there was a 
latent energy in his whole bearing that seemed to 
betoken that the wrinkles and the grey were due to 
other causes besides those of advancing years. But 
whatever might have been their cause, Pauline did not 
consider them further. Her friend’s years were a matter 
of little moment to her. She liked him just as he was 
— not a day cider, not a day younger. 

The same searching light that was playing over Sir 
Francis’s locks was illuminating Pauline’s face as well. 
She had also thrown aside her hat, and the ruffled 
masses of her hair, piled high upon her small head, 
formed a kind of bronze casque which set off marvel- 
lously the pure colouring of her skin. If Sir Francis 
had compared her a while ago to a canvas of Van 


264 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Dyck’s he thought of her now in connection with 
Titian’s incarnations of feminine beauty, or the ideal 
Venetians of Paul Veronese. When she turned her head 
aside her silhouette made a pure transparent line that 
would have sent an artist into ecstasies. Sir Francis 
was an artist in more senses than one, and he felt with 
regard to Pauline as Wordsworth felt about the little 
maid he encountered in the village whose beauty made 
him glad. But gladness of that description is a com- 
plicated feeling, and did not prevent Pauline’s friend 
from uttering a restless sigh at the close of these 
reflections upon her beauty. 

The “ story ” he chose for her was that most charming 
poem of Laurence’s, in which the hero carries eternally 
in his breast the recollection of the magic beauty of the 
goddess of the woods whom it has once been given him 
to behold. For ever after under the spell, he lives upon 
the memory of that glorious vision, devoured by the 
vain desire of once more worshipping it with his mortal 
eyes. Sir Francis recited this poem simply, but moved 
within himself by the sense of its peculiar applicableness 
to the actual circumstances. 

Pauline sate breathless all the time the recitation lasted ; 
her red lips parted, her absorbed attitude plainly denoting 
that she was drinking in every word. After it was over 
she drew a long breath. 

“Thank you,” she said slowly; “I never heard any- 
thing so lovely. Do you know any more, or would you 
mind saying it again ? ” 

“ Don’t you thirrk it’s your turn,” he said, feeling for 
his cigar-case once more, and resolutely looking away 
from the eager face directed towards him. “ Why, you 
must know some of your school pieces still, I should 
think.” 

“ I never went to school,” with ruffled dignity ; “ and I 
don’t know why you should treat me as though I were a 
baby. I learn pieces sometimes to please myself.” 

“ Not to please the owner of Victory, surely,” reflected 
Sir Francis. Indeed, George’s name had not once fallen 
from his wife’s lips since the morning. “Well, say any- 
thing,” he continued aloud. “Do you know any French 
verses ? ” 

“I know some of Andre Chenier’s,” said Pauline, and 
she repeated the touching lines which the poet puts into 


A RED-LETTER DAY. 


265 


the mouth of the young girl, his fellow prisoner under 
the Jacobin administration. The refrain, “Je suis trop 
jeune pour mourir,” sounded pathetic and musical as it 
issued from her lips, so full and ruddy with youth and 
health, and as Pauline had done before in his case. Sir 
Francis asked for more, without any thought of paying 
her a conventional compliment upon the charm of her 
recitation. 

But he was not prepared for the sudden change of 
mood which followed. 

“ ‘ Ah — bah ! ’ as grand’mere says,’* she cried, jump- 
ing up suddenly. “ It’s too sad. It is not a day for 
des idees mires. Do just look; there’s a jackass — a real 
laughing jackass, on that dead branch. They have such 
a queer note ; like this, you know ” 

And upon her companion’s startled ears there rang 
forth, all of a sudden, the most curious, inimitable, 
guttural, diabolical tremolo it had ever befallen them to 
hear. For an instant he could not decide whether it 
was Pauline or the bird that had uttered the sound. If 
Mrs. Drafton had treated her husband to such a per- 
formance, George’s enthusiasm would have known no 
bounds. He would have made her “do the jackass” in 
season and out of season. But Pauline’s accomplishments 
in this line were unknown to him for the reason that the 
spirit had never moved her to display them in his presence. 
Sir Francis, for his part, was immensely amused by the 
performance. 

“ I don’t know how a human throat can produce such a 
sound,” he said. “ But those birds must claim you for a 
sister. How did you manage to catch their, exact note ? ’ 

“ Oh, it’s easy enough,” said Pauline, laughing ; and as 
she was now in the vein, she reproduced, with the same 
startling accuracy, the plaintive chirp of the mina, the 
droll double note of the wattle- bird, the croaking call of 
the morepork. 

It appeared that this singular young woman was good 
company in more senses than one. What with recitations, 
grave and gay — imitations of the notes of wild birds 
of the bush — and snatches of conversation, unconstrained 
and delightful, for the very reason that it was uncon- 
strained— the afternoon hours galloped by with relent- 
less haste. It devolved upon Sir' Francis to take the 
first reluctant heed of the lengthening shadows and 


266 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


golden glow of the declining sun. His companion 
seemed to take no heed of the time. Certainly it was 
an intoxicating idea to contemplate, wandering about 
with her in “the glimpses of the moon,” but it did not 
fit with his mood of the morning, which was the one 
he would fain have found the strength to adhere to. 
Very gravely the pair walked back to the waggonette. 
Pauline climbed inside without a word, and Sir Francis 
loitered in the vicinity, while the driver went for the 
hamper and pocketed the debris of the lunch for his 
supper. Before he had time to return, Pauline’s friend 
came and stood at the back of the vehicle in which 
she was seated, his arms resting on the closed door. 

“Have you enjoyed your day?” he said. 

They seemed to be quite old friends by this tiine, 
and his question sounded as natural, and as free from 
the least hint of vanity or fatuity, as though it had 
been addressed to a favourite child by some fond parent 
who had been giving it a treat. 

“ Yes ; have you ? ” 

It was growing dusk, and within the covered waggon- 
ette it was almost dark. But Pauline leant forward as 
she asked this question, and as under certain circum- 
stances impressions will sometimes rivet themselves upon 
the "mind c^uite unexpectedly, as though they had been 
branded upon it in undying characters, so the vision 
of her face, as it emerged from the semi-obscurity, with 
the sailor hat pushed back, the soft eyes shining, and 
the row of pearly teeth gleaming between the parted lips, 
stamped itself upon his brain thenceforth and for ever. 
Among the series of mental photographs scored upon 
the pages of his memory, that one of Pauline’s face 
smiling at him from out of the gloom of the waggonette, 
was perhaps the most enduring of all. It was fixing itself, 
all unknown to him and to her, as he answered slowly — 

“You know I have.” The words sounded almost 
solemn, there was so much behind them that remained 
unsaid. Then he turned resolutely away, and took his 
place next to the driver upon the box. At the Bourke 
Street pastry-cook’s, where the empty hamper was duly 
deposed, he dismissed the man, and walked with Pauline 
to the stand in Elizabeth Street, there to put her into 
a fresh waggonette, notwithstanding her protestations that 
she could find her way back by herself. 


A h EA CE-OFFERING. 267 

“I want to know whether you and — and Mr. Drafton” 
(he hurried over the name of Pauline’s husband as 
though it encumbered him) “would come to lunch with 
me some day on board my yacht. I should like to 
show it to you so much.” 

“ It would be delightful,” said Pauline. “ I’m sure 
George will say yes. He cares more for horsey things 
than shippy ones, you know; but I’ll make him come.” 

This was the only allusion to the fact that there was 
a husband in the case that either of the friends had 
suffered themselves to make. Sir Francis was puzzled 
by Pauline’s tone. From one point of view it might 
have argued the completest indiference. From another 
a wifely avowal of her legitimate influence with her lord. 
But this was not the only circumstance connected with 
the moving experiences of the day which Pauline’s 
friend found somewhat mystifying when he came to 
reflect over them. What Mrs. Drafton herself — not- 
withstanding her most unconventional conduct — would 
'say and do under circumstances such as most men in 
his place would seek to bring about, was still, he told 
himself, quite problematical. But the problem must 
remain unanswered for the present, if not for ever; for 
there was only time now for a long lingering pressure 
of the little ungloved hand laid in his own, before 
Pauline was whirled out of his sight on her way back 
to her rightful proprietor. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

A PEACE-OFFERING. 

" 'fhey say best men are moulded out of faults.” 

It was a great relief to George, on entering the sitting- 
room at Scott’s Hotel between six and seven that even- 
ing, to hear a humming refrain from the adjoining room, 
in a voice that it was rarely given to him to hear under 
like conditions. 

“Je bois — ^je mange — ^je chante, je ris ; je bois — ^je 
mange — avec — e — mes amis. Tra-la, la-la, la-la, la-la, la !” 
carolled the voice, of which the owner was apparently 
moving about the room as she sang. 

George tip-toed through the sitting-room with elaborate 
precaution, and stood silently at the half-open door of the 
inner apartment, looking at the occupant thereof with an 
expression that would have brought down the house if it 
could have been utilised for the stage. There was a 
mixture of shamefacedness and fun and longing written 
there at one and the same time. A most evident desire 
also to brazen it out, kept in check by doubt as to the 
success of such a proceeding, and fear lest he should 
break the charm that through some unknown agency had 
been at work during his absence. 

“Je bois — je mange — ^je chante — je ris” continued 

the voice. 

Then there was a half-scream — “ Oh, George, how you 
terrified me ! How can you ? ” 

But now the ice was broken. There could be no return 
to the frigid attitude of the morning. In the space of half 
a second the owner of Victory had clasped his wife in his 
arms, and was raining kisses on her unresponsive lips. 
Such disjointed exclamations as “ My old woman ! It’s 
been such a wretched day ; I dropped a devil of a lot of 
money — but that’s neither here nor there. It’s been an 
out-and-out wretched day — after the way you sent me off 
this morning,” were all he could utter between the intervals. 


A PEACE-OFFERING. 


269 

“ Poor George ! ” Pauline said gravely, when he would 
give her breath to speak. 

Her husband could not guess what a world of signi- 
ficance lay in those simple words. He was only moved 
by the expression of sympathy, and very grateful for it 
in his heart. 

“ But there, IVe brought a peace-offering for you,” 
he said, and he held out a large letter with the Sydney 
postmark. “Won’t you give me a kiss for it of your 
own accord, just for once, old woman ? And IVe got 
tickets for the Royal. Charley Matthews is going to 
play. Isn’t that a lark? What have you been doing 
with yourself all day ? But it’s no use talking to you 
when you’ve got your letters, I know ! That little devil 
of an uncle of yours has the first place in your heart. 
You needn’t tell 

George was bustling about as he spoke, divesting him- 
self of racing-glass and dust-coat, and emptying his 
pockets of a heap of loose coin. By the time Pauline 
had read her letters, lingering with tender delight over 
the unformed copy-book characters in which Chubby 
informed her that he and the gardener were planting a 
new shrubbery and “ bilding ” a new “ fool ” house, it 
was time to dine, and the “ flounders freetes ” and other 
delicacies had to be hurried through to give time to dress 
for the theatre. There was not much space left for 
recording the events of the day. 

“ Sir Francis Segrave called to see you,” Mrs. Drafton 
informed her husband during the course of the meal, “ and 
we saw the Melbourne library this afternoon. Did you 
know there were such lovely pictures to be seen, George ? 
/didnV You musf see it. And so you lost money, you 
say. What a pity you can’t refrain from betting ! ” 

She despised herself after she had uttered the fore- 
going sentence. Was it this afternoon that she had gone 
to see the pictures with her friend? Well, it was after 
twelve, even by the tardy clock and if George did not 
inquire where and how she had lunched that day, why 
should she make it a matter of conscience to inform 
him? As for the remark about the betting, it occurred 
in connection with her husband’s own disposal of his 
day, which had not certainly been spent as innocently 
and profitably as hers had been. It was only because, 
by some strange anomaly, the most innocent expeditions 


270 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


sounded singular sometimes, when they were narrated in 
words afterwards, that she did not describe the whole of 
the day’s events in detail. And it was not at all because 
George stood to her in the relation of a husband that 
there seemed to be a difficulty in narrating them. To 
any other kind of husband, one who would have been 
in sympathy with her tastes and comprehension of things, 
there would have been, of course, no difficulty or hesita- 
tion whatever in recounting all her impressions. But then 
George did not occupy the place of this ideal husband, 
gifted with a fine and subtle understanding of things, and 
it was just as well that the passing allusion to his day’s 
losses should have had the effect — that his wife knew it 
would have — of relegating the information conveyed in the 
first part of her sentence to the second place in his thoughts. 

“ Can’t refrain from betting ! ” he echoed, with offended 
dignity. “ I should like to know when you’ve seen me 
gamble before in your life. A nice character you’d give 
me all round ! You’ve been taking a leaf out of my 
uncle’s book, I can see ! ” 

He was so occupied in defending himself against this 
random charge that he found no time to revert to the 
subject of the pictures at the public library, and before 
he was quite “through” with his discourse it was time 
to dress for the theatre. Arriving there late, he forgot 
everything in the glory of conducting his wife to a front 
seat in the front row of the dress circle. 

Apart from the particular kind of beauty upon which 
George loved to feast his eyes before the flickering logs 
upon the homely hearth in the remote Rubria homestead, 
there was another kind of beauty connected with Pauline 
which needed a brilliant background, a hall, or ballroom 
lighted a giorno, and a striking arrangement of colour to 
give it full effect. Against such a background as this the 
combination of heavily-fringed eyes and scarlet lips, “rare 
pale ” cheeks and bronze-brown hair, stood out like a living 
picture of loveliness. 

To-night Pauline was looking her best. Her eyes and 
mind were still full of the sun-steeped visions of her 
afternoon of vagabondism. The theatre was crowded, and 
George was aware, as they took their seats, that every glass 
in the theatre was directed towards them. The sweetest 
kind of incense he had ever known was sending its intoxi- 
(:ating fumes through his brain. 


A PEACE-OFFERING. 


271 


“There sits the owner of the winner of the Melbojrne 
Cup,” — people would be saying — “and that beautiful 
woman next to him is his wife.” How all the world 
would envy him I 

He could hardly control his voice to point out the 
people he knew, and recount their various histories to 
his wife. “ Do you see that big Jewy-looking man, with 
diamond rings and studs down there? He’s a book- 
maker, and he cleared five thousand pounds on Victory 
yesterday. There’s such a funny story about his brother. 

Er-er-er ” and George condensed a whole three- 

volume novel into a few muttered sentences for Pauline’s 
exclusive benefit. “ And that fair man over there. He’ll 
be 'as rich as Croesus one of these days; and his father 

came out wdthout a shilling. He began, er-er-er” 

Pauline failed to catch the rest. “And just look at that 
fellow with the pretty woman in black lace and diamonds 
^ by his side. He’s a regular sport, and he runs square ; 
but that’s not his wife, though you’d think she was, 
wouldn’t you? She, er-er-er” more muttered confi- 

dences followed. It seemed to Pauline that her husband 
knew the names and histories of every one in the theatre ; 
though to tell the truth, she found the play infinitely ‘ 
more interesting than the kind of chronique scandaleuse 
which George insisted upon serving up to her. She 
had never seen “The School for Scandal,” and sate in 
rapt and delighted attention, as the excellent actors 
and actresses who then figured upon the Melbourne 
stage, assisted by a waning star from home, gave their 
admirable interpretation of Sheridan’s great masterpiece. 
At the end of the first act, she was so full of what she 
had seen that she hardly gave heed to George’s fresh 
outbreak of gossiping comment upon the surrounding 
audience. Suddenly, however, she heard a name that 
made her heart beat violently. “ I say, Pauline, there’s 
a fellow looking at us through his glasses from the 
seat over there — a fellow with long moustaches. Isn’t it 
Sir Francis Segrave ? I guess he sees us; eh?” 

George’s voice was agitated, and his face had changed 
colour. 'Phe confused impression he still retained of 
yesterday’s doings was the reverse of reassuring. Of 
course Sir Francis Segrave must be a man of the 
world, not a canting idiot like some other people he 
knew ; but even a man of the world might think the 


272 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


particular moment of assisting with one’s young wife 
at the races a badly-chosen one, to say the least of it, 
for celebrating the triumph of one’s colours after the 
special fashion in which George had celebrated it yesterday. 
He could not quite remember either how he had t^arted 
from Sir Francis on the preceding day. And he never 
could know, he added ruefully to himself^ as he would take 
particular care never to revert to the subject of the 
adventures of Cup day in his wife’s presence again. 

It is a profound truth that nothing is true but think- 
ing makes it so. George’s imagination was investing 
Sir Francis Segrave with the role of skeleton at his 
feast, because his own uneasy conscience had risen up 
and reproached him with yesterday’s misdeeds. But 
his eyes were closed to the real reason for which the 
“ distinguished stranger ” might well have assumed the 
role of skeleton — not only at the Theatre Royal feast, 
but in the same secret cupboard wherein George had 
once stored the mysterious figure of the selector. His 
eyes were closed, because he was trying vainly to recall 
how he had returned to Scott’s Hotel the day before ; 
and though it seemed to Pauline that surely every one 
in the theatre must hear the rapid thump, thump of 
her heart, and be aware of the strained, half-terrified 
expression in her face, as she fanned herself mechanically, 
her emotion passed entirely unperceived by her husband 
She was glad that she had the time to nerve herself 
up for what was to follow, before Sir Francis, leisurely 
rising from his seat, and walking with his accustomed 
imperturbable air slowly round the back of the boxes, 
arrived at the part of the house in which she was 
seated, and descended the steps to the front row, 
carrying his crush hat under his arm and his opera- 
glass in his hand. For an instant before his hand 
touched hers one rapid glance was exchanged between 
the friends. Pauline looked dazzlingly beautiful, with 
shoulders and arms like polished marble emerging from 
a shimmery, crystal-sparkling, perfectly-fitting evening 
gown — the result of one of Fifme’s inspired conceptions. 
It was' not easy to connect her all at once with the 
holiday-making Pauline of a few hours ago. But the 
eloquent eyes had not changed ; only there was an 
almost guilty half-scared expression in their brown 
depths that Sir Francis had not seen there before, and 


A PEACE-OFFERING. 


273 


that gave him a curious twinge of compunction as he 
noticed it. It was wonderful, nevertheless, how quickly 
his manner seemed to put every one at ease. 

He was unaffectedly cordial towards George, and most 
courteously deferential to George’s wife. If in taking her 
hand his pressure of it for one fleeting half second seemed 
to promise reassurance and devotion beyond expression in 
words, his grasp of George’s own hand was very firm and 
friendly. Just as he had won the latter’s heart by his 
appreciation of Victory and the Flemington course the day 
before, so he discovered the way to it again this evening 
by his hearty admiration of the Melbourne stage. 

“ I have rarely seen better acting,” he said ; “ and 
excepting that there is a far greater average of pretty 
faces among the audience, one could almost fancy one- 
self in London.” 

“That’s what I tell my wife,” said George, looking 
round at her with a triumphant air. “ She’s always harp- 
ing on going to Europe. She’ll never be content till 
she’s seen home, and all the rest of it. Now, J’ve 
never been, and I don’t care two straws about going ! 
I know just what it’s like. Of course I don’t pretend 
you can get fusty old ruins in the colonies, or that kind 
of thing; but you won’t see finer shops than in Mel- 
bourne. You can judge for yourself what the racing’s 
like too. Eve heard fellows from home say it’s out- 
and-out better fun than in England.” 

“Still, Europe has some few little advantages, you 
know ! ” said Sir Francis, with gentle deprecation. 

Pauline detected the covert irony in his tone, which 
fell unheeded on George’s ear. A moment later the latter 
hurried off to speak to a fellow who had made him an 
offer for Victory, and during his absence Sir Francis, whp 
had been standing up hitherto, seated himself next to 
Pauline’s side. It was wonderful, once more, that sense 
of a friendship of long date — a friendship of which the 
beginning was lost in the mist of time — that came upon 
them when they were left alone together. 

“ Have you told your husband of our day’s expedi- 
tion?” were almost his first softly-uttered words as he 
seated himself by her side. He had the art of saying 
the most important things with the most unimportant air. 
To the spectators themselves at the Theatre Royal, whose 
glasses still turned themselves as towards a magnet to the 

s 


274 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


part of the house where Mrs. Drafton was to he seen, he 
was saying possibly that it had been rather a warm day. 

“ I told him we saw the pictures,” said Pauline in 
the same low voice, but with a trembling utterance. 
Burning blushes were covering her cheeks. Between 
herself and her acquaintance of yesterday there seemed 
already to exist the bond of a secret understanding. 

But Sir Francis made no further allusion to their 
expedition. He had raised his opera-glass to his eyes, 
and was affecting to take a survey of the house from 
the “ intelligent visitor ” point of view as he once 
more addressed his companion. 

“ I want to know,” his voice carried exactly as far as 
Pauline’s ear, but not an inch farther, “whether I may 
ask your husband this evening to fix a day for coming 
with you on board the yacht. I. don’t know how soon 
I may have to go away, and I have set my heart upon 
your seeing my home. I want to carry away a vision 
of you among my household gods just as I saw you 
to-day under the trees.” 

“"I should like to come very much, thank you,” said 
Pauline, replying to the first part of his speech only, 
and assuming a staid air of conventional propriety 
which did not deceive him in the least ; “ and I am 
sure George would like it too.” 

“ And I am going to ask a favour of you at the same 
time,” he continued. He had laid down the opera-glass 
and was stroking his long moustache with the gesture 
Pauline knew so well. His voice was pitched in the 
same low key as before, but its tone seemed to penetrate 
now to her very heart. “Will you wear exactly what 
you had on to-day when you come to see me on board ? 
Of course I should like to have you in your ball-dress too 
—but that is out of the question, and then I should be 
frightened by such a resplendent vision when you came 
floating into my cabin in my dreams. I want you — 

• Not too bright or good 
For human nature’s daily food,’ 

exactly as you were to-day.” 

As Pauline’s downcast smiling eyes did not say him 
nay, he went on — “ I am very superstitious, you know — 
that makes you open great eyes, doesn’t it? — but I am 
scieniifically superstitious, if you can understand. I 


A PEACE-OFFERING. 


27S 


liave heard or read somewhere, I don’t know where, 
that every shadow makes a real, tangible, durable im- 
pression upon the object upon which it is thrown ; the 
book said just as when you stick a wafer on a highly- 
polished razor, and take it off again, you will see the 
round of the wafer every time you breathe on the blade 
for ever and ever after. Of course the impression made 
by the shadow is too faint for us to see it with our 
mortal eyes, but we know it is there; and I have a super- 
stition that, under certain circumstances, by a great effort 
of will and imagination, one can evoke a pale resemblance 
of it. You see now why I lay such stress upon your 
coming. I should never be able to raise your ghost 
satisfactorily if I hadn’t the knowledge that you had been 
actually there in the flesh.” 

“ I don’t think your imagination need stop at that, if 
it can go so far,” said Pauline, laughing. 

“Ah, but my imagination must have something to work 
upon,” said Sir' Francis, with a mock solemn air. “Only 
fancy breathing upon the razor if the wafer had never 
been stuck upon it at all. One might expend all the 
breath in one’s body to no purpose. I must be able to 
say, ‘ She stood yus/ there — she rested here ’ — before I can 
evoke my vision. I could evoke it in the Royal Park 
without the least difficulty” 

At this instant George returned, and Sir Francis 
proffered his invitation in due form. “To-morrow is 
Sunday. Could you come to lunch with me on board at 
one o’clock? Mrs. Drafton will make allowances for the 
shortcomings of a bachelor establishment, I know.” 

George looked at Pauline, who was nodding her head 
at him in token that she wished him to say “Yes.” 

Sunday at Scott’s Hotel, with the gloomy warehouses 
opposite frowning behind their closed shutters, and the 
West Melbourne church-goers walking primly by with 
their go-to-meeting air, did not seem a very alluring per- 
spective. Josiah’s golden villa was closed. If museums 
or galleries had been open, George would not have 
entered them on the Sabbath. The yacht offered a con- 
venient compromise; for among the objects of interest 
tabooed by his particular code of Sunday morals “ship- 
ping” did not find a place. The force of early associa- 
tion made a walk upon the wharves or a visit to a 
man-of-war a fitting Sunday afternoon pastime. And if 


276 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


a man-of-war, why not a yacht? All things considered, 
George was pleased to accept the invitation. He was 
not sorry either to have an opportunity of showing Sir 
Francis Segrave that it was not his habit in the ordinary 
way to drink more than was good for him. 

Pauline’s friend did not pay her any more visits that 
evening between the acts. Notwithstanding his admira- 
tion for the Melbourne stage, he left before the play 
was half over. George remained, as in duty bound, and 
enjoyed himself immensely. He had forgotten all about 
his headache of the morning and the money he had dropped 
during the day. So. many of his friends begged to be intro- 
duced to his wife that Pauline had quite a levee in her seat 
in the front row during every successive entr'acte. Some of 
George’s old chums did not hesitate to express themselves 
enthusiastically about her to him afterwards, with the un- 
complimentary addition of the observation — “It beats me 
how she came to have you^ old fellow ! ” 

“And her looks don’t belie her,” George would 
respond, highly gratified. “ She’s awfully clever, you 
know — awfully clever ! ” 

His voice would drop to a mysterious w^hisper as he 
made this communication, after which he would return 
to his wife with jubilation and triumph in his air. 

“You’ve made quite a furore^ my old woman— -that’s 
the word, isn’t it? — quite a furore; all the fellows are 
talking of you.” 

“ Poor George ! ” Pauline whispered again, under her 
breath and quite involuntarily this time. But aloud 
she only said, “ I think the ‘School for Scandal ’ interests 
me more. Hasn’t it been a treat, George ? ” 

“Jolly!” said her husband; “but I rather hope the 
last act won’t be so long as the others. I’m going to take 
you to have some oysters as soon as we can get away.” 

And after oysters they went. Cloaked and clouded 
up, with the sparkling evening gown bunched around her, 
Mrs. Drafton was conducted by her husband, as they 
left the theatre, to a modest little shop in Elizabeth 
Street, divided into stalls, and smelling strongly of 
sea- weed and vinegar. They went there on foot, at her 
own urgent desire. Bourke Street was thronged as she 
never had seen it before, and the wide pavement, 
illuminated by the flaring jets of gas from pastry-cooks’ 
shops and eating-houses, was overflowing with people. 


A PEACE-OFFERING. 


277 


There were families returning late from Paddy’s Market 
at the east end of Bourke Street with their store of 
perishable bargains in bags and baskets. It was wonder- 
ful how Pauline’s heart went out to every small boy 
in knickerbockers who had a look of Chubby. There 
were rows of hustling, bustling, rowdy youths, of whom 
some were still so young that their voices gave but 
strange effect to the mouth-filling oaths they uttered, 
pushing their way along the pavement with hats tilted 
back and vile-scented cigars between their lips. Pauline 
shrank before the fierce onward sweep of these roughs, 
while George forced a clear passage for. her, and damned 
the larrikins openly. 

There were also girls and women, singly and in pairs, 
with prodigious ostrich feathers in their hats, tremen- 
dous earrings and lockets of yellow Australian gold, and 
a trailing curl, of the description known as a “ follow-me- 
lad,” pendent from the nape of the neck. A morbid 
curiosity impelled Pauline to look into the eyes of these 
smartly-dressed women as she passed them. A sudden 
pain and pity overcame her as she looked. It was the 
first experience she had ever had of the streets of a 
great city at that hour of the night. 

“And oh! ivhy are people like that?” she asked 
herself in shocked bewilderment. “ How far can they 
help themselves, .1 wonder?” Gaols and hospitals, 
mad asylums and the ghastly gallows, outlined them- 
selves before her excited imagination as her eyes en- 
countered some peculiarly reckless, vicious, irredeemable 
face in the crowd that streamed past her. They were 
like the dwellers in the City of the Demons in the 
fantastic Eastern tale grand’mere used to read to her from 
an old “Keepsake;” beings who, for all their dancing and 
rioting, had yet on their foreheads the mark of an inward 
consinning anguish. What drove them to this kind of 
reckless, fevered existence ? Was it the thirst of pleasure 
only — or was there no kindly family influence to hold 
them together? Did the renouncing of family ties mean 
taking the first step along this dreary, delirious road ? 
Pauline shuddered inwardly as she asked herself the 
question. For a brief instant the lonely Rubria hearth, 
with George singing “Tommy Dodd ” in the arm-chair oppo- 
site, and tlie big kangaroo dogs tap])ing the floor with 
their tails at his feet, rose before her like the vision of 


278 IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 

a safe and sheltering haven. There lay her home, her 
duty, and her safeguard. She had chosen her lot, and 
the anchorage was at least a safe and a sure one. But it 
was a pity she was so young. Life was so very, very 
long. And the time to be tided over, before the restless 
craving for the unattainable something she had missed, 
should be silenced and quieted, seemed almost an eternity 
to contemplate, unless she could discipline herself be- 
forehand to crucify the ego and all its claims. 

George was far from imagining how Pauline’s cogitative 
faculties had been occupied all the time they were walk- 
ing to the oyster-shop. But as they left it, after what he 
called “ a good tuck-out,” and walked up the deserted part 
of Collins Street, leading towards its western extremity, 
under the tranquillising rays of a radiant full moon, he was 
gratified to perceive that she clung to his arm as though 
its support had become a necessity to her. He won- 
dered within himself whether she clung to it knowingly, 
and was almost afraid to speak lest he should break the 
spell. But as they approached the hotel she said sud- 
denly — “ George ! ” 

“Yes, my old woman?” he replied, inclining his head, 
lover-like, towards her lips. 

“ I want to tell you, George ” 

She was speaking rapidly, with great effort. Then some 
people from the hotel passed her, and she stopped. When 
she spoke next her voice had become calmer. 

“When do you think we shall go — home, George?” 

“I’ll go as soon as ever you like, dearest,” said her 
husband. 

What a difference between his feelings as he entered 
the dimly-lighted sitting-room of the hotel this midnight, 
and those with which he had rushed out of it only 
fourteen hours ago ! Pauline had spoken of her own 
accord about going home — it was the first time he 
had ever heard her pronounce that sweet word — and 
though he had left her all day like a brute, she had 
behaved like an angel to him this evening ! He was a 
fool to have thrown away the best part of his winnings 
on the Cup that day, but he would recoup himself yet. 
And what a triumphant return to the old place they 
would have when all was said and done ! He, and 
Pauline, and Victory ! 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

SUNDAY ON BOARD A YACHT. 

“ As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean.” 

—Coleridge, 

Sunday turned out to be a day of still heat. The sun 
poured down its rays from an early hour upon the 
gloomy bluestone buildings opposite Scott’s Hotel — 
gloomier than ever under their severely Sabbatarian 
aspect. George • lounged about the sitting-room all the 
forenoon, while Pauline indited a long epistle in printed 
characters to her Uncle Chubby, with a sketch of Victory’s 
jockey at the end of it painted in pink and gold 
with the aid of her box of water-colours. At twelve 
o’clock the paints were put away, Mrs. Drafton dressed 
herself in the identical white grass-cloth, black lace 
mantilla, and sailor hat of the day before, and, carrying 
her little flounced parasol in her hand, came to warn 
her husband that it was time to start. 

“ I don’t know whether you’ve made yourself quite 
enough of a swell,” George remarked, as he looked her 
up and down according to his habit when they were 
going out together. “I thought you’d have come out 
in all your Cup day finery, you know.” 

“ 'rhat would be too fine.” said Pauline hastily; “this 
is much more suitable. But don’t stay to criticise me 
now. anyhow, George, or we shall miss our train.” 

The impressions of the evening before had been 
thrust into the background by the prospect of the happy 
day (as the Rotherhithe advertisements have it) in store 
for her. 

At Pauline’s age the mind as well as the bodily 
frame is still amazingly elastic. Even the bowling along 
of the waggonette to the Spencer Street station past the 
great closed stores, the sight of the sailors of the 
Cerberus upon the Spencer Street platform, with their 

279 


28 o 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


picturesque man-of-war clothes and gait, and the un* 
interesting prospect of square weatherboard cottages, 
dusty gardens, and unclaimed wastes and swamps, on 
the way to Williamstown, were so many pleasurable 
experiences, affording scope for an unending vista of 
aerial superstructures. I'hen the interest of looking 
across the bay as the train neared the Williamstown 
platform ! The sea was as Calm as a lake. It lay 
perfectly quiescent — a dull slate colour, only pricked 
here and there into silver sparkles where the rays of 
the sun penetrated the mist of heat that hung over it 
like a veil of gauze. 

Sir Francis Segrave was waiting for his visitors at the 
station. He had not told them he would be there, 
but Pauline distinguished his tall form, as it stood a 
little removed from the groups of commonplace Sunday- 
outers, with a new perception of the enormous con- 
trast that existed between all ordinary people and him- 
self. Again the tell-tale colour rose to her cheeks. For 
a minute she felt as though her simple dress were a 
flaring, flaming advertisement (like the feathers and 
lockets of the women she had seen the evening before), 
proclaiming loudly that she had come to show her pre- 
ference for another than her husband. But George 
was so unconscious, and was waving his hand with 
such signs of cordial greeting towards his host, that 
she repelled the inopportune fancy with indignant shame. 
She would not even respond to the transient smile that 
flitted like a flash of sunshine across her friend’s face, 
as he saw her standing at the door of the carriage in 
her accusing dress. 

She bowed constrainedly ; and it was George who 
held out his arms and received her in them as she 
jumped from the carriage to the platform. 

There was a boat in waiting for them at the jetty, 
manned by six sailors from the yacht, trim and spruce 
as those of a man-of-war. 

There was also a young man, in an ordinary morning 
suit, who stood up as they approached, and whom Sir 
Francis introduced to them as “my friend, Mr. Travers, 
and my one passenger.” 

Pauline cast a rapid glance at this enviable being, who, 
as friend and travelling companion of the proprietor of 
the yacht, was necessarily engaged in the delightful 


SUNDAY ON BOARD A YACHT. 


281 

pastime of viewing, under his guidance, all the marvels 
of this marvellous world. He was somewhat lank, but 
the sallow beardless face was rendered interesting by .a 
nervous, humorous mouth, and by two grey eyes of 
amazing sweetness of expression. He was not probably 
much older than Pauline herself, and he affected an 
exaggerated respect for Sir Francis, whom he called 
indifferently “ captain ” and “ sir.” 

“You mustn’t be deceived in our captain,” he informed 
Mrs. Drafton, in a mysterious undertone, as they went 
along. 

The boat was bounding pleasantly through the water, 
under the vigorous, even stroke of the rowers, and Sir 
Francis, on the opposite seat, was giving. George technical 
details respecting the length and beam and tonnage of 
the yacht, mirrored in the waters of the bay at the dis- 
tance of half a mile. 

“You mustn’t be deceived in our captain, you know. 
You wouldn’t believe, to see him on shore, what an 
aii’ful character he is on the high seas.” 

■ “No — one wouldn’t think it,” said Pauline seriously, 
with an air of entire credulity. “‘High seas’ is sugges- 
tive of any amount of horrors, though. But what does 
he do, for example?” 

“Oh, I could give you the most blood-curdling descrip- 
tions, but you’d be afraid to go on board. But you won’t 
see anything to frighten you — the cat-o’-nine*tails, and 
the irons, and all the rest of it! Our captain locks ’em 
away when he’s expecting ladies on board.” 

“ And how does he treat you 1 ” said Pauline, laughing. 

Oh, I’m a poor, confiding orphan. But he 
makes my life a burden to me all the same. What I 
have to suffer when the cook doesn’t put enough pepper 
into the curry ! ” 

“ Or when the ‘ wheel gets mixed up with the bowsprit ’ 
sometimes,” interrupted Paulina 

“ Exactly I I see you know all about it. But, apropos 
of the captain ! You musn’t suppose it’s all gold that 
glitters on the yacht. I daresay you’ll be charmed with 
the arrajigements. But if you get the skipper by himself 
a moment, you just ask him to show you his Chamber 
of Horrors.” 

“I will,” said Pauline, “really and truly.” 

“And then you’ll see whether he isn’t the ‘mildest- 


282 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


mannered man that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat/ 
I hope you don’t know where that comes from. It’s not 
nearly as improving reading as the ‘Hunting of the 
Snark.’ But here we are, by Jove ! 'Fhose wretched 
sailors — don’t they play their parts well?” 

“Wonderfully well!” replied Pauline, laughing. “They’re 
the ideal sailor type — aren’t they? Bronzed and muscular 
and jolly-looking ! ” 

“That’s all got up. We’ve got a bronze mixture on 
board, and their jolliness is de commande too. Oh, it’s a 
wicked world ! ” 

So saying, and with a profound sigh, Mr. Travers rose 
from his place. The boat was swaying up against the 
vessel’s side, and the first mate was standing at the foot 
of the staircase to help Mrs. Drafton to alight. With her 
right hand clasped by the long fingers of her new friend, 
and her left firmly enclosed in the sinewy grasp of Sir 
Francis, Pauline stepped from the swaying boat to the 
staircase, and in another instant found herself on the 
deck of the Aurora. 

Mr. 'Havers had told her she would be “ charmed with 
the arrangements,” but the reality far surpassed her ex- 
pectations. To the initiated the Aurora would have 
appeared simply a handsome specimen of a three-masted 
schooner, capable of doing from ten to twelve knots 
within the hour, under steam or sail, in very creditable 
style. To the uninitiated, like Pauline, the vessel bore 
the aspect of a great marvellous glittering toy, with its 
gleaming white decks, burnished adornments of shining 
brass, long tapering delicate masts, and mysterious net- 
work of ropes and spars, through which the hazy sky 
glowed warmly in the distance. 

George was very hearty in his praise. “ She’s a beauty, 
and no mistake,” he said, as he gazed with the air of a 
connoisseur around him. “What age may she be, I 
wonder? ” 

“ I had her built after a plan of my own three years 
ago,” said Sir Francis, “ and we’ve taken her through 
some queer weather since; haven’t we, Travers?” 

“Yes, captain,” said the young man promptly — then 
in an aside to Pauline, “and to some queer places too. 
You ask the skipper what that thing’s called, Mrs. 
Drafton,” pointing with a sinister expression to a kind 
of strong wooden frame standing amidships. 


SUNDAY ON BOARD A YACHT. 


283 


“Yes. What is it called — please?” said Pauline, 
indicating the frame with the point of the flounced 
parasol. 

“ That ? Oh, we call it the gallows bits ! IPs not a 
promising name, is it?” 

“There!” whispered Mr. Travers triumphantly, “what 
did I tell you ? He’s obliged to unmask himself. If 
you knew the deeds of horror that gallows could un- 
fold to you I Walking the plank is nothing to them. 
But there go three bells in the forecastle. We shall 
have to go to lunch, and then you’ll see us dissemble. 
No one can dissemble better than the ^skipper — but 
you musn’t be deceived by him.” 

If it had been possible to connect a hint of serious 
intention with this particular kind of fooling, Pauline 
could have fancied that there was a grain of earnestness- 
in Mr. Travers’s closing warning. But there was no time 
for reflecting upon this wild idea, as the lunch bell rang 
and the whole party went below into the saloon. 

•According to a new method of construction, the saloon 
embraced the entire breadth of the yacht, and through 
the wide open square ports Pauline could see the many- 
wrinkled ocean, as Homer has it, twinkling and spark- 
ling in blue and silver on either side of her. If the 
deck had aroused her admiration, the saloon sent her 
into ecstasies. Against a background of dull red and 
gold there were collections of curios and works of art 
such as she had never seen or imagined. Oriental 
stuffs of exquisitely blended hues — Indian embroideries, 
Japanese shields, mother-of-pearl implements from the 
South Seas, wondrous weapons from Borneo, Benares 
vases, and Chinese paintings on ivory, all these made 
a medley of harmonious confusion — if the term be not 
a paradox — that delighted Pauline’s starved artistic per- 
ceptions immensely. 

The lunch was worthy of a gourmet. George, who 
prided himself upon his discernment with regard to cookery 
and wines, referred to it afterwards as “licking creation.” 
The Portuguese man-cook had arranged a “ menu ” 
worthy of himself, which was the highest praise that 
could be given to it, and the barefooted, white-turbaned 
Indian waiter, who assisted the steward to serve the 
guests, was swift and silent as the legendary slave of 
the lamp himself. 


284 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Whether by design or not, Sir Francis Segrave seemed 
to address his conversation mainly to George. But in 
answer to Pauline’s questions respecting the mother-of- 
pearl implements, he entered into a description of his 
last cruise among the coral islands which fired the 
imaginations of all present. 

“ There ; that’s the kind of travelling I’d like to go in 
for ! ” said George ; “ thafs sport if you like. I can see 
my wife’s ready to start off this minute by her face ! ” 

“Oh, George, if we only could said Pauline, draw- 
ing a deep breath. “ I think it must be like fairy- 
land.” 

“ Wait till we pull off another Cup ! ” said George, 
laughing. 

While these few words were being exchanged between 
husband and wife. Sir Francis had been addressing a 
hurried injunction in a low voice to Mr. Travers. When 
lunch was over the latter said to George, “You’re not a 
novice, I can see, Mr. Drafton. If you like I’ll show 
you the fo’castle and the engines. I’d like to hear your 
opinion too about a kangaroo pup I bought the other day. 
I don’t know if he’s the right sort.” 

“All right,” said George, jumping up with alacrity. 

“And I’ll tell Mrs. Drafton the history of those relics 
she’s examining,” said Sir Francis. 

The relics in question were long, slender coils of supple, 
shiny cord, that bore a strange resemblance to human 
hair. There were necklets and armlets pendent in the 
neighbourhood, of these that seemed to be composed 
of human teeth. 

“ That’s only the beginning of the Chamber of Horrors,” 
whispered Mr. Travers to Pauline, as he passed her on 
his way to the deck with George. “ There’s more where 
that comes from. There’s a regular Bluebeard’s chamber 
below. All this has been manufactured out of its grue- 
some contents ! ” 

“ Do not be so silly,” said Pauline, laughing ; but there 
was rather an anxious expression in her face as she 
turned it towards her host after Mr. Travers and George 
had left them. The hair and the teeth must needs have 
a history of some kind. 

Kut Sir Francis did not seem to be thinking of the 
relics at - all. Pauline’s eyes dropped involuntarily as 
they encountered his. If ever eyes, which are, after all. 


SUNDAY ON BOARD A YACHT, 


285 


the ‘‘windows of the soul,” allowed the hidden emotions 
of their owner to look through them, his eyes were per- 
forming this treacherous office at the moment of Pauline’s 
looking round. She did not know, for an instant, whether 
her heart throbbed in sympathy or in anger. But she 
commanded herself sufficiently to take up one of the 
coils she was examining, and ask, in a voice that trembled 
in spite of herself, where it came from. 

Sir Francis was standing next to her, against the divan 
which lined the walls of the saloon. He passed his 
hand rapidly across his eyes, as though to drive away 
the vision they had been holding, and said composedly — 

“Curious, isn’t it? Ever since I got hold of those 
hair ropes in the South Seas, I have thought there might 
be something in 'that story of the women of Carthage 
cutting off their long hair to make ropes for the defence 
of their city.” 

“ 1 remember,” said Pauline eagerly. The era of 
“Ancient History Lessons” was still very fresh in her 
memory. “ It was in the third Punic war.” 

“That’s a good child. You may go to the top,” he 
said, laughing. Then, twisting a coil round his wrist 
and tugging at it, “ You can have no idea of the tre- 
mendous strength of these coils.” 

“They hardly look like hair, they’re so coarse and 
black,” observed Pauline. 

“ No wonder, if you could see the skulls that grow 
them. Now your hair,” his eyes wandered over the 
soft crown that surmounted Mrs. Drafton’s uncovered 
head, “ would make a rope of silk ; but I daresay it 
would be just as resisting. It m-ght do for that ideal 
rope by which sailors imagine that their sweethearts are 
pulling them across the seas.” Then lowering his voice, 
“ You can’t think how grateful I felt to you to-day 
when you stepped out of the railway carriage in that 
dress I asked you to wear. You’re not angry with 
me for wanting to carry away that image of you, are 
you? You know I can’t help it.” His voice had sunk 
to a whisper, but every word fell distinctly upon Pauline’s 
ear. “ You know how 1 feel about you I ” 

Pauline was' silent. Her head was bent, and her 
cheeks had grown very pale. She could feel (without 
seeing them) that his eyes were fastened intently and 
ardeiuly upon her. It seemed to her as though some 


286 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


strange magnetic spell had been cast over her. But 
the spell was a dangerously sweet one. When George 
had told her, with an outpouring of vehement love and 
passion, that he desired her for his own, “.to have 
and to hold till death should them part,” she had tried 
in vain to feel moved and responsive. Now, all un- 
bidden, after a short three days’ acquaintanceship with 
a stranger, her heart was beating in rapturous agitation 
at the sound of an unholy avowal murmured in her 
ear. She had made no effort in one direction or the 
other. She had followed her instincts and her impulses 
without let or hindrance. And here was the conse- 
quence ! Here was the awful consequence ! Were her 
instincts, then, fundamentally depraved? Was she in- 
herently, “ naturally vicious,” as Mr. Bumble said of 
Oliver Twist? Or was the feeling to which she had 
done such violence when she had forced herself to 
accept George’s love avenging itself upon her now by 
waking into life at the wrong time, and for the wrong 
person? It was horrible. But if it had not been for 
the spectre of poor George, it would have seemed as 
natural to lay her head on her friend’s breast, and to 
let his lips seek hers, as though her sentiment had been 
sanctified by all the laws, written and unwritten, of 
heaven and earth. 

How long the spell lasted, neither she nor Sir Francis 
knew. He had not intended to betray his secret (if 
secret it were) just now, But was it a secret at all? 
From the very first moment of their meeting had they not 
found tliemselves drawn towards each other, without will 
or connivance of their own — almost as though they had 
been the forlorn separated halves of one whole, according 
to the doctrine of the sage Plato? His lips had given 
almost involuntary utterance to his sentiment ; but had 
they not echoed the unspoken response that Pauline’s 
heart was offering all the time ? There was not the least 
alloy of vanity in his feeling. Not a grain of the triumph 
he might have been supposed to harbour at the speedy 
acknowledgment of his power by a young and most beau- 
tiful woman. He felt rather as though she and he were 
victims of some relentless destiny, that had thrown them 
into each other’s way for the accomplishment of a pre- 
conceived plan. Certainly it was not his first experience 
of a similar adventure, but his sensations with regard to it 


SUNDAY ON BOARD A YACHT. 


287 


were of quite a new order. He had felt strongly before, 
but never in this particular kind of way. Since he 
had known Pauline— three days ago — the possibility of 
anchoring all his being— love, desire, ambition — all in 
the affections of one only woman, had come home to 
him for the first time. It was a theory of his that the 
quality known as fickleness is, for the most part, only the 
result of not having found one’s “true mate.” With 
Pauline for his own, he would never have wanted to 
change. More contradictory still, notwithstanding the 
rapid, almost immediate surrender of her heart to him- 
self — a comparative stranger — he felt as though (had they 
both been free) he would not have had the least doubt 
or misgiving in pfacing his happiness and his honour in 
her hands. She would have been true and faithful be- 
cause she loved him. What better guarantee could he 
wish for? And what a different kind of guarantee from 
the enforced oath — that even a parrot’s beak might be 
made to pronounce — confusedly murmured before the 
altar in the course of a bewildering day ! 

These thoughts, and a thousand others to which they 
gave rise, rushed through his brain as he stood watching 
Pauline, with his keen glance, standing silenf and trem- 
bling by his side. 

At last she broke the silence. There was something 
almost piteous in the appeal of the dark eyes as she raised 
them towards his face. 

“ Why do you speak about it ? ” she said, with a slight 
involuntary shudder. “ What is the use ? ” 

“How can I help it?” he whispered. The white- tur- 
baned waiter was moving noiselessly upon his bare feet 
round the table, removing the remains of pine-api)les 
and loquats as though he had been wafting them away by 
magic. At the opposite end of the saloon a half-draped 
portilre disclosed part of the interior of a large cabin, 
abounding, like the saloon itself, in Turkey rugs and 
Oriental divans. “Won’t you come this way?” said Sir 
Francis abruptly. “I want to show you my collection of 
Fijian skulls.” 

The last words were pronounced in clear sounding 
tones, which 'did not fail to reach the ears of the slave 
of the lamp. But they had the unexpected effect of 
bringing back to Pauline’s recollection the ridiculous 
warnings . of Mr. Travers. She followed hesitatingly. 


288 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


and as Sir Francis held aside the curtain to allow her 
to pass, she made a half-unconscious movement of her 
hand as though to open it still wider. 

He did not appear to notice the gesture, but follow- 
ing her into the cabin, found her a seat upon a low 
divan just beneath the wide open port. A heavenly 
air wandered in from the sunlit expanse without, and 
caressed her forehead and cheeks. Against the red 
background, her charming head looked more than ever 
like a study from the brush of a Titian. The warm after- 
noon light was shining obliquely upon it, and here and 
there a glint of gold flickered in her hair as she moved. 
Sir Francis seated himself by her side. Behind them 
the quiet sea heaved and rippled against the vessel’s 
side; in front of them and all around them, bronzes, 
and scimitars, cashmeres and Japanese arms, carved 
ivory and tiger-skins, curios and relics innumerable, 
speaking to the imagination of the vastness and variety 
of the world’s products, and of the widely differing 
standards of art, beauty, morals, wrong and right, that 
our fellow-creatures possess, were scattered in splendid 
and picturesque profusion. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE. 


** It is the secret sympathy, 

The silver link, the silken tie. 

Which heart to heart and mind to mind 
In body and in soul can bind.” 

0 

There is a French proverb, which, like all other proverbs, 
is too absolute in its statement, but which ])ossesses, 
nevertheless, a large substratum of trut’n. This proverb 
declares that '•^Chateau qui parle^ et fe7nine qui ecouteP 
are both on the point of surrendering. However this 
may be, it is certain that Sir Francis did not lose sight 
of the enormous advantage he had acquired in gaining 
Pauline’s ear. But he followed up the advantage with 
such elaborate precautions, his manner was so gentle, 
and so profoundly respectful, that her misgivings and 
her trepidation slowly melted away. Everything around 
her seemed to soothe and lull her senses. The soft air, 
the low impassioned tones that vibrated upon her ear, 
and the rippling splash of the gentle waves without. 
The surroundings, too, spoke of a different kind of 
world from her own. Certainly the row of Fijian skulls 
was not a reassuring spectacle. They seemed to grin 
with their fleshless jaws as though they had been mock- 
ing at the tardy process of love-making — so different 
from that of their own experience — that they were forced 
to witness. But the scimitars and tiger-skins, the Japa- 
nese masks and Oriental stuffs, formed a background 
of enervating influence. Even the odour of sandal- 
wood, that mingled with the balmy atmosphere wafted 
in through the open port, was subtly narcotic in its 
influence. 

As Sir Francis continued to speak, Pauline continued 
to listen. Could it be a crime, she a.sked herself, to hear 
what he had to say — especially as this was the prelude 
to an eternal farewell? Of course, after such a scene, 

T 


290 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


they must never, never meet again. But what a solace 
it would be to her, in the long, stagnant, dreary future 
that loomed before her, to recall this moment ! Surely 
she might listen, for the first and last time, to the one 
and only voice that had the power to evoke such a 
strange unaccustomed thrill of sympathy in her whole 
being. The “might have been” had sometimes shaped 
itself vaguely to her imagination like a bright nebulous 
vision of ^lory. Now she would be able ' to give it 
substance, and to ponder over it in a definite form, and 
life would be fuller and richer than ever before. 

So much for Pauline’s mental attitude. As for Sir 
Francis, it was only by a strong effort of will that he 
forced himself to speak calmly and deliberately, and 
to abstain from yielding to the stormy impulse that bid 
him clasp his listener to his heart. To older women 
than Pauline his reasoning might not have sounded 
entirely convincing. The simple answer that a promise 
given and a duty undertaken have to be fulfilled at 
all costs, would have shaken it to its very foundations. 
But to our inexperienced heroine, nourished upon 
Fourierism, and regardless of the pitfall at her feet, while 
gazing at the stars overhead, specious arguments seemed 
almost to convey the doctrines of a new Gospel. She 
heard now, for the first time, that the purest, holiest 
instinct was that of spontaneous love. Hitherto she had 
been filled with a burning shame for having tacitly ad- 
mitted that she had succumbed to its sway. In all the 
books she had ever read, it was only after a long time, 
years and years of conflict, and misery, and remorse, 
that the heroine had allowed even a hint of her sentiment 
to penetrate the mask that her dignity and her duty forced 
her to wear. And here, at the end of a three days’ 
acquaintanceship, she had betrayed herself. Even her 
friend must think lightly of her now. Incoherently and 
distressfully Pauline essayed to explain her feeling in 
this respect. But Sir Francis seemed to understand her 
before she had time even to formulate her thought. 

“ Think lightly of you, my darling ! ” he whispered 
vehemently ; “ how little you know what I really venerate ! 
Why, if you were not the most transparently natural, 
truthful, unartificial creature upon God’s earth, and 
therefore the most pare — yes, I say it from my soul, the 
most pure — you would not have betrayed yourself It 


THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE. 291 

is because you are so truthful that you can’t help your- 
self. That is one of the reasons why I love and worship 
you so completely. Some women would have made a 
merit of posing for three weeks, or three months, or three 
years — what does it matter? But you are truth itself.” 

“ No, no,” she interrupted him, in great distress. “ I 
can’t bear to hear you praise me in that way. All my 
thoughts are confused just now ; but if I am truthful 
to you, I am being awfully untruthful to George.” 

“Of course you are untruthful to him, and to your- 
self too, as long as you live with him,” he answered 
shortly. “ I had not been five minutes with you 
before I saw that your marriage was a most ghastly 
blunder. What made you do it? How was it brought 
about? Did they force you into it?” 

“No, nobody forced me,” said Pauline; “but I had 
to do it.” Then seeing his bewildered expression, she 
continued hurriedly, “It was at that picnic, you re- 
member ? — yoic were to have gone to it, and you didn’t. 
Chubby was sitting in the buggy all alone, and the 
horse took fright, and was going to dash over the cliff, 
and Chubby would have been killed under my eyes,” 
she could not control a shiver as she said these words, 
“only George saved him. He saved him at the risk 
of his own life (everybody said so); he broke his collar- 
bone in doing it, and he fainted from the pain ; and 
then, when he asked me again to marry him, I promised 
him I would. Grand’mere tried all she could to pre- 
vent it, but I could not take back my word, could I?” 

“You might have asked him to give it you back!” 

“Oh, but he wouldn’t!” exclaimed Pauline naively. 
“He cared about me too much, you know.” 

“ Cared about you ! ” echoed her companion grimly. 
“He knew he had made a good bargain, and he was de- 
termined to hold you to it. Good God ! What a horrible 
sacrifice ! Don’t you see what an unfair advantage he 
took of you ? It didn’t matter to him whether he 
wrecked your whole life, so long as he got hold of you 
for himself But it is just what one might have expected 
of him ” 

“ You mustn’t say any harm of George,” interrupted 
Pauline shortly, while a warm flush rose to her cheeks. 
“You don’t know him, or his character either, the very 
least bit in the world.” 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


^ 9 ^ 

“ I’ve seen quite enough to form my own opinion, 
thanks,” said Francis drily. “ A man must be utterly devoid 
of the least spark of chivalry to force a woman into a dis- 
tasteful marriage on the strength of a promise wrenched 
from her in an instant of mistaken enthusiasm. But 
didn’t you feel what an insane thing you were doing? 
What a wildly Quixotic action it was ! ” 

Pauline was silent. The drowsy lapping of the waves 
without was the only sound that fell upon her questioner’s 
ear. Truth Ao tell, her memory was rising against her 
like an accusing ghost, as the vision of the past surged 
up and confronted her. Yes ! she /lad felt misgivings, 
though she had argued them down and battled them 
down. She had felt them constantly. Up to the fatal 
morning of her marriage, a hidden voice had whispered 
to her persistently that her intended self-sacrifice was a 
fault., besides being a grievous mistake. It had told her 
that she was acting disloyally towards her future husband 
as well as towards herself — that she was outraging the 
holiest and the purest of woman’s instincts. She had 
been more than half aware that she was doing wrong 
at the time, and now her conscience reproached her 
with it loudly. Her motives had not been all as praise- 
worthy as she had imagined them. There had been an 
unacknowledged grain of obstinacy — a large measure of 
the unreasoning determination of a martyr in her mood. 
And now came the bitter reflection that she had been 
her own undoing. She had forged her chain with her 
own hands, and she must drag it wearily along to the 
end of her journey. She had gone but a little way, it 
was true, yet already she was groaning under the load. 
Worst of all, she had betrayed the secret which honour 
demanded that she should carry with her to the grave. 
In her present frame of mind she hardly knew whether 
the betrayal was a relief, or only an additional burden 
she had added to the other one. Doubt and remorse, 
and shame and perplexity and hope, were all written in 
her face as she cast a timid glance towards her friend. 

“ George will be wondering where I am,” she said ; 
then added in a low hurried voice, “You were speak- 
ing of chivalry just now — I think I know what it means. 
If you care for me in that kind of way — even though 
I should never see you again — it would make all my 
life seem different. And life does seem so hard . and 


THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE, 


293 


difficult to understand — so does everything ! But I want 
to do right — what is considered right, I mean ; and if 
I have your friendship, and can -go on believing in you 
always, it would make everything so wonderfully mUch 
happier. I should not feel weighed down by a secret 
like that. Oh ! I hope you know what I mean, and 
that you understand. You do — don't you?” 

She was looking at him with eyes that pleaded 
even more passionately than her words. The old, old 
dream of 

“ Love — such love as spirits feel 
In worlds whose course is equable and pure ” — 

was inspiring her imagination. 

It was a curious expression she encountered in Francis’s 
eyes as he returned her look. I'he appeal had touched 
him in a sensitive point, and for the moment he could 
almost have found it in his heart to swear that he would 
be' as Launcelot and Sir Galahad in one. As the former, 
in respect of the strength and endurance of his passion ; 
as the latter in respect of the whiteness and purity of it. 
That he would watch over his lady from a distance, 
nor ask for other guerdon than the knowledge that his 
devotion was a solace and a support to her. 

In obedience to that transient impulse, he took 
Pauline’s hand in his own and lifted it to his lips. 
“ My dear,” he said, in a tone of the deepest tender- 
ness, “I will do in all things exactly as you wish. You 
are my fate^ Pauline. It is curious, isn’t it? I seem 
to have had a presentiment of it the instant I saw 
you the other day. When you know me better, you 
will see that I am not one to give my heart away 
lightly. (I suppose I must have belonged to you from 
all time, though now that I have found you I cannot 
claim you.” 

“It is no use to think of that,” said Pauline, with- 
drawing her trembling hand from his grasp. “I want 
to be able to think of you as my dearest friend, and 
to be able to write to you, and all : but oh, please^ 
for pity’s sake, don’t stay any longer in Melbourne now ! 
I can’t reason against you, and I do care about you. 
Surely that is good reason enough for going way. If 
you only knew how the thought of your staying terrifies 
me !* Indeed, indeed it does. You say I am truthful, 


294 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


and this is the very truth. I want you to go. I beg 
you with all my heart and soul to go.” 

There was no mistaking the passionate earnestness 
of her voice. Emotion choked her utterance. Her 
hands were twisted together as though the sincerity of 
her petition had evoked the unconscious gesture of 
prayer. Sir Francis stroked his moustache, as was his 
invariable habit in moments of perplexity, and then 
replied, in a voice pitched to the softest and most 
persuasive of tones — 

“ Poor child, you still have to learn what it is to 
be real/y loved. Have I not promised you that I 
would do just what you wish ? I will go away to-night 
if you want me to, though you mustn’t mind my 
saying it is a very bad compliment you are paying 
both to yourself and to me. But can’t you muster 
the courage to hear me quietly for an instant first ? 
I oug/il to stay a week or two longer in Melbourne ” 
(“and the letters from home,” thought Pauline, but 
she did not interrupt him) ; “ but I promise you 

I will not breathe a word about my love for you 
— unless you /<?// me that I may. I will only see 
you formally, and in the presence of others. Surely you 
cannot want to take away that little happiness from me. 
Just to be in the same room with you sometimes — to 
have you turn your face towards me when you are at the 
theatre or the races — it is not asking for much, is it? 
and the sternest moralist — I won’t tell you now \^’hat I 
think of the conventional code of morality, for it would 
frighten you away from me again — but the sternest moralist 
could not see any harm in that. You must accustom 
yourself to look upon me as a friend you can Irusl. 
And the first time 1 break the condition I have laid 
upon myself, you shall send me away without mercy, 
I promise you. Will that do ; and will you giye me your 
hand upon it?” 

He rose from his seat, and approached her with his 
right hand extended. 

“You make me believe you, in spite of myself,” said 
Pauline, unconsciously paraphrasing the words of a Pagan 
emperor, but she smiled as she surrendered her band 
to his grasp. The vision of a love beyond w^rcls that 
would fling its radiance over her path henceloiib pre- 
sented itself to her imagination — could any dream be 


THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE. 


295 

sweeter ? It would change the whole tenour of existence. 
It was the ideal re;ilised How easy it would be to 

give her entire devotion in action to George and to 
duty, while she might nurse in her inmost heart a 

pure and satisfying sentiment for another ! And in 
such a solace as this there could be no sin. d'he 
feeling had come to her of itself, unsought and un- 
bidden. It was there, and all the self-upbraiding in 

the world could not drive it away. But it could be 
forced to follow the direction she would give it — the 
direction, that was'* to say, of a loyal and elevating 
friendship. Had not her friend told her she could 

trust him ; and did not that imply a full understanding 
of all she felt? What stronger reassurance could she 
require than 'the promise he had just made her of 
his own free will? 

As though to give her time to recover from her agi- 
tation, Sir Francis turned away and walked towards the 
opposite end of the cabin. Pauline saw him select a 
tiny key from among the few breloques that hung upon 
his watch chain, and open therewith a miniature cabinet 
in old Japanese lacquer work, securely fastened against 
the wall. 'I’he cabinet open, he touched a hidden spring, 
a minute panel slid .aside, and disclosed a very tiny box, 
which he drew from its hiding-place and carried back 
to her carefully. 

“Is that the explanation of the dark mystery Mr. 
Travers hinted at, I wonder?” thought Pauline half 
mockingly; but she fixed her eyes at the same time 
upon the box with a full measure of feminine curiosity 
as to its contents. 

Sir Francis said nothing, but opened it slowly, and 
drew therefrom a curiously carved and graven ring. It 
was in the form of two twisted serpents, bearing between 
their wide-opened jaws a stone that might have been a 
great diamond or only a piece of glittering rock crystal ; 
Pauline could not divine which. The peculiarity of the 
ring consisted in the fact that in the heart of this gem 
or stone there lay a small dull globule of the hue of 
tarnished gold. 

“ What does it mean ? ” she asked. 

“It means speedy and almost painless death,” he 
answered softly. “You must know that once on a time 
I was given to making chemical experiments, and I met 


296 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


at Heidelberg a German chemist who helped me to carry 
out an idea I had long had. You see that miniature 
globe of gold; there lies inside it, hermetically sealed, 
a drop of poison so deadly, that the person who should 
breathe it between his lips would drop dead very few 
seconds after. To get at it, one only has to press a 
tiny lever with one’s finger-nail, to be found — but that is 
a secret only known to myself. The difficulty was to 
distil the poison, and get the globule confined within 
the ring before it evaporated — for it is as subtle as it 
is deadly. It was only by means of a chance discovery 
of my German chemist’s that we succeeded, after a 
thousand fruitless attempts. I believe this is the only 
ring of the kind in the world, and I doubt whether 
a similar one could be produced.” 

“And what are those letters in Hebrew or Greek — I 
don’t know which — carved on the inside?” 

“That is a Greek word — Euthanasia — sudden death. 
Have you a desire to raise the ring to your lips ? I would 
not let you handle it if there were any danger. A child 
might suck it all day without the least risk. I generally 
wear it on my finger, though the objection to it is that it 
attracts attention. But it might be worn with safety by 
anybody. I am the only person, you see, who knows the 
secret it contains and how to get at it. It is like the 
masonic sign, or the cave in Ali Baba. It has no meaning 
excepting for the initiated.” 

“And why did you want it?” asked Pauline gravely. 

“Why did I want it?” he repeated, smiling a strange 
smile. “ How solemnly you say that ! A whim ! nothing 
more. I have my own interpretation of life, you know.” 

“I wish I had such a possession,” she said, with a 
profound sigh, at the end of a long pause. “ I should 
feel so safe.^'‘ 

He drew it from the finger upon which he had placed 
it, and dropped it into her lap. “It is yours when you 
will,” he said, “but the secret is not yours. And the 
secret shall never be yours unless there should come a 
time ripe for giving it to you. You will ask me for it 
some day. ])erhaps — upon certain conditions — and 1 will 
not withhold it from you. But till then it would not 
be right to tell it to you.” 

“ The ring is of no use without it,” said Pauline, hand- 
ing it back to him. “ Keep it until I ask for it and the 


THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE. 


297 


secret together.” She tried to speak as though she 
were jesting, but vainly. “ Tell me, is it only good for 
one go ? ” she continued with mock seriousness ; “ or 
would it kill two people at a time?” 

“ It would kill them both together if their lips were 
joined over it. That would be expiring in a kiss with 
a vengeance, wouldn’t it? But it could not be trans- 
ferred from one person to another, it evaporates so 
rapidly.” 

At this instant George’s voice, interrupted by more 
than one hearty peal of laughter, was heard in the saloon. 
He had come down from deck with Mr. Travers, linking 
his arm within that of the young man, and exploding irv 
boisterous mirth at his dry conceits. 

George was apt to make fast and furious friendships 
upon the very speediest notice. His sympathies would 
bubble up like champagne froth, and vanish almost as 
quickly when the object of them was removed. 

As Pauline came out hurriedly to meet him, he greeted 
lier with a jubilant though somewhat incoherent account 
of an awful lark they had just been having in the fo’castle. 
It concerned a Kanaka, 'whom they had bribed to let 
them drop a tame lizard down his back, while he tackled 
at the same time a prickly porcupine that was “ a caution 
to snakes.” Pauline listened to her husband’s voice with 
a curious sensation of having been called back from 
some long journey that she had just been making to an 
unknown region in infinite space. More uncomfortable 
and unaccountable still was the strange sensation that 
oppressed her of Mr. Travers’s knowing, as well as 
though he had been in the place of the P'ijian skulls 
themselves, the exact nature of the scene that had just 
passed between herself and the “skijtper.” It almost 
seemed to her as though everything she had said and 
thought must be written in her face, and she could hardly 
understand how her friend’s manner could remain so 
entirely cool and calm and natural. 

Sir Francis now led George into the cabin containing 
the skulls, and answered all the hundred and one 
questions that they suggested. Perceiving the almost 
covetous glance that his guest directed towards a 
miniature skull from Japan, carved with marvellously 
realistic accuracy in ivory, he begged him to accept it, 
and asked permission to present Mrs. Drafton with a 


298 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


trifling memento of her visit at the same time. Neither 
George nor Pauline were in the least aware of the value 
of the gift — a little bunch of feather flowers from 
Brazil, though the work that had produced them 
seemed something little short of miraculous upon closer 
inspection. 

As the day wore on, afternoon tea was served 
beneath an awning upon deck. Pauline lay back in a 
deck chair with something of a lotus-eatePs sensations. 
The air was so soft and bright, it seemed to caress 
her cheeks like a veil of silk. The distant vessels 
were mirrored in the quiet sea, making a double picture 
of masts and bulwarks. The secret she had shared 
with her friend — ^not the secret of . the ring, but the 
secret of their mutual attachment — lay warm at the 
heart. The wrong or right of it was not to be thought 
of just now. When she was reminded of it by a 
certain expression in his eyes, that came into them 
only when he looked at her, she felt her heart beat 

responsively and exultantly. She said little, being quite 
content with her own share of happiness. Sir Francis, 
on the other hand, talked a ’good deal. He talked of 
things that were most interesting to George, and seemed, 
to her surprise, to hit upon many meeting-points with 

him. George had all the instincts of a hunter, and, 

to Pauline’s astonishment, it appeared that he was well 
up in colonial history and politics as well. She had 
never heard him give so much information, or emit 
such shrewd opinions about land-laws, miners’ rights, 

duties upon imported stock, and selections. Her respc-ct 
for him rose as she listened ; and in obedience to her 
strong natural prompting always to go to the heart' of 
things, she found herself comparing her own knowledge 
with her husband’s,' and asking herself whether that of 
the latter would not be of more use in the world than 
her own ill-assorted and unpractical store of it. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

HOW THE RIFT IS TO BE WIDENED. 

“ And oftentimes excusing of a fault, 

Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse." 

Long after Pauline had left the yacht, its owner con- 
tinued to walk up and down the deck in the starlight, 
ruminating deeply. The men were accustomed to see 
him take this post-prandial exercise in the evening, his 
cigar between his lips and a large St. Bernard dog at 
his heels. When the night was oppressively warm, 
young Travers would creep up from below, clad in 
an airy suit of clinging pyjamas that gave him the air 
of a lithe amateur harlequin, and saunter by the skipper’s 
side. But this evening 'he had an instinctive feeling 
that the skipper desired to be left to himself. The 
dull red spark at the end of the cigar, glowing like a 
miniature beacon light, might be seen monotonously 
travelling backwards and forwards through the darkness, 
until even the St. Bernard’s patience was tired out. The 
Indian attendant, stretched full-length in a hidden corner 
of the deck, had fallen into a profound sleep, from which, 
neverthefess, he was prepared to wake at the first sign that 
his master needed his services. The tuneful voices from 
the fo’castle, that had been sounding the chorus of— 

“ my own true love — 

She’s doing the grand, in a distant land, 

Ten thousand miles away," 

were gradually hushed. A profound peace fell upon 
the Aurora. The silently shining stars overhead, and 
the upward shoot of the balls of phosphorescent light 
through the dark waters, illumined her above and below ; 
and in the midst of the star-spangled obscurity Sir 
Francis Segrave continued to pace slowly up and down 
the solitary deck wrapped in deep thought. 

The truth is that he was approaching a crisis in his 
life, and he knew it. It behoved him now to consider 

299 


300 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


how he would meet it. An all - mastering desire had 
taken possession of him, and it threatened to overwhelrn 
him completely. He wanted Pauline Drafton for his 
own ; to such an extent, indeed, that life without her 
hardly seemed worth the having. That is a very true 
saying which informs us that it is only the possible we 
hanker after. Few ])eople fret their lives out because 
they are not kings or queens. If Sir Francis had seen 
George Drafton’s wife safely anchored in her husband’s 
affections, he might have admired her — he might even 
have regretted his lost opportunities deeply — but the 
thought of deliberately setting himself to undermine 
her tranquil wedded love would not have occurred to 
him. He would have looked, and longed, and gone 
his way. 

But it had not taken him long to discover that 
Pauline’s anchorage was a very insecure one, and this 
discovery it was that seemed to change the entire aspect 
of the case. How far poor erring humanity is justified 
in playing the role of Providence (like the Archduke in 
the “ Mysteries of Paris ”), in projecting dark deeds as 
the forerunners of angelic ones, and committing evil 
actions that good may come out of them, he did not 
stop to consider. To what extent the fend justifies the 
means is, in point of fact, a question about which much 
remains to be said. But Sir Francis had not the in- 
clination to argue this out with himself in the abstract, 
and simply set to work to consider whether the end he 
had in view was a justifiable one or not. The means 
might be taken into account later. 

The more he pondered, the more he was inclined to 
conclude that his object might be defended — even upon 
ethical grounds. He did not want Pauline for the 
satisfaction of a sultanesque caprice — if such a word is 
permissible. He wanted her in order that she might 
share his life and love to the very end of their united 
days. 

He wanted her for her sake as well as for his own. 
She had let him see right into her heart, and he was 
convinced that he could make her happy. He wanted 
to take her entirely aw’^ay from her jiresent associations, 
and make her his wedded wife. The drawback was 
that this desire could only be realised at the cost of 
much peril, much scandal, and much suffering. There 


HOW THE RIFT IS TO BE WIDENED. 301 

would be a terrible path — a real manvais pas — to follow 
for a while. In the first place, he would have to 
attach himself to George, and increase the latent pro- 
pensities of the unfortunate young man to drink and 
gamble until Pauline should learn to loathe her husband’s 
presence. This Drafton was a weak-natured fellow. He 
could easily be worked upon to go to excesses, and be sent 
home drunk to his wife as often as occasion required. 

This first step towards the accomplishment of his 
purpose was not a pleasant one, and Sir Francis told 
himself that he would rather perform it by proxy. But 
the consequence of it might be reckoned upon with 
certainty. Pauline would be inevitably driven to seek 
sympathy and protection at her friend’s hands, and 
afterwards the rest would be easy. There would not 
be any difficulty in making her leave Australia with 
him in the yacht. He would cruise about with her 
out of reach of danger until George, prompted thereto 
by the suggestions of a somewhat out-at- elbows sporting 
lawyer of his acquaintance, who must be • adroitly and 
heavily bribed for the purpose, should ask for and 
obtain a divorce. That could not be a matter of 
many months’ delay, and, the divorce obtained. Sir 
Francis would marry Pauline in due form and take 
her where she would soon forget all about her early 
career. Then he would bring her home to England, 
and place her in the position for which she was so 
well fitted. He had an ample fortune, and now only 
he would^ really enjoy it — with the one woman in the 
world for him by his side. 

Here then was his object, and here were the means 
of obtaining it. Now as to his justification, for 

walking up and down, with only the eternal verities in 
the shape of the stars to behold his reverie, he felt he 
might question his own soul in perfect freedom. The 
justification was not perhaps as easy to find upon a 
first examination as he had believed. George’s right 
of possession was the strong point against it. In vain 
the would-be self-justifier went over the scene of the 
afternoon — telling himself for the hundredth time that 
Pauline’s marriage was no marriage, that she had been 
dealt with unfairly, that her actual position was quite 
unsafe and uncertain, and would probably end in some 
dire catastrophe if he * abstained from meddling with 


302 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


it for his own part j that the step he contemplated, 
would be her salvation if it ended successfully — in vain 
he tried to persuade himself that even for George’s 
own sake a violent rupture would be a better and 
safer solution than any other, and that a nature like 
his would very soon outlive a short and painful episode, 
for which it was clearly responsible, in the first instance, 
since it had allowed him to force a woman to marry 
liim without regard for her future happiness. In vain 
he urged that Pauline’s present existence with a man 
towards whom she felt as she must feel towards 
George Drafton — whether that man should bear the 
name of husband or not — was wrong, unrighteous, and 
dangerous, and that her union with himself, who loved 
her, and whom she was ready to love in return, would 
be the only true and pure union possible. He was 
aware all the time of the existence of an unsatisfactory 
and disconcerting counter-plea far down in the depths 
of his conscience. “What right have you to meddle 
with another man’s good ? ” it said. “ George Drafton 
loves his wife. No matter how he won her, she is 
his now. In God’s name leave him to keep her if he 
can. You say he will get over it if you drag her 
away from him. But how do you know whether you 
will not wreck his life for ever ; and though that may 
not count for much in your eyes, how can you answer 
for the effect of your work upon the woman you love? 
Supposing you only succeed in giving her a lifelong 
remorse ? She is not without a certain kind of sentiment 
for her husband, though you are going to do your best 
to destroy it by abasing him to the uttermost in her eyes. 
But have a care ! Between trying to work the moral 
destruction of the man who stands in your path, and 
murdering him outright, there is not much to choose. 
Have a care, and count the cost. For, though all 
should turn out exactly as you intend, and Pauline 
should come to you apparently of her own free will — 
nay, even if you should be able to marry her later, and 
right her in the eyes of the world, there is such a 
thing as retribution. Not the retribution inflicted by 
an offended Deity — who has no existence for you — but 
the retribution that follows wrongdoing, by taking away 
all flavour from the thing we .have hungered after as 
soon as it is in our possession.” 


HOW THE RIFT IS TO BE WIDENED. 


303 


will take my chance for that,” replied Sir Francis 
to this importunate advocate; “the retributive argument 
has no terrors for me. Besides, there is Pauline her- 
self to be considered. Why should her whole life be 
sacrified because of a mistake for which she is hardly 
responsible? Why am I to consider her husband and 

not herself? If I can save her I will. It is not as 

though I had not counted the cost. It shall be for 

her to decide. If she loves me, and will come to me, 
I will sacrifice everything in life to attain the end of 
making her happy. She will not feel much remorse, 
I reckon, if she learns, as is most probable, that her 
present husband has married a barmaid the month after 
he has divorced her. And because this George Drafton 
is in actual possession, because he has taken a mean 
advantage of the enthusiasm of an innocent girl, I am 
to fold my hands and go away, with the knowledge 
that at the cost of a little risk and trouble I might 
- be united for ever to the only woman I shall ever love, 
and what is more maddening still, to a woman who 

possesses all the treasures of a first love, sharpened 
by unsatisfying experience, to bestow upon me in return. 
And I am to think of her from henceforth, eating her 
heart out by the side of that uncomprehending clod, 
until she commits some fohy, or turns /asly or goes 
religious mad, or some horror of the kind ensues. I 
am to accept all this, I say, for no better reason than 
the one that she is Mrs. Drafton. It is monstrous ! 
As for wQrking the fellow’s ruin, it is easy to stop short 
of that. A couple of weeks here or there make but 
little difference in a lifetime, and a few more scenes 
like the one which followed his celebration of the 
Melbourne Cup will soon do my business.” 

It is popularly supposed that before thoughts can 
become coherent they must shape themselves in the 
brain dn the form of unspoken words. I cannot answer 
for it that any one of the words above transcribed 
took conscious shape in Sir Francis Segrave’s mind, 
but the tenour of his communing with himself ran to 
the phrases I have set down. The counter-advocate 
was silenced for the nonce, and so effectually that Sir 
Francis bethought himself of going below and “turning 
in,” after he had thrown his last half-consumed cigar 
into the sea. The “ slave of the lamp ” slept on un- 


304 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


disturbed, for his master crept down alone and noise- 
lessly, though, notwithstanding the satisfying solution he 
had arrived at, he did not betake himself at once to 
his berth in quest of that , sleep of the just which he 
had supposed himself so ready to appreciate. An 
Algerian lantern, suspended from the ceiling, threw its 
green and red rays with a subdued glow over the 
strange medley of objects that surrounded him. The 
spear points glinted capriciously, the gleaming skulls 
seemed almost to grin at him of their own intention. 
He threw himself down upon the divan on which 
Pauline had been seated, and conjured up the vision 
of her charming form as he had seen it a few hours 
ago. The whole place seemed full of her impalpable 
presence, and as he recalled all that had passed as the 
vision of her face looking out at him from the gloom 
of the waggonette a few days back returned to him, a 
wild idea came into his mind. An idea of bringing 
her down alone to the yacht, where everything should 
be in readiness for an immediate departure. While 
the sailors were heaving the anchor to their old chorus 
of “ For we say so, and we hope so,” he would unfold 
his plan to her and surprise her into consent. Then when 
once he had sailed away with her, away to the 

“summer isles of Eden, 

Lying in dark purple spheres of sea,” 

she would be his for ever. 

It was an entrancing, intoxicating idea to contemplate, 
having her all to himself, with the wide ocean around them. 
He would arrange her a boudoir fit for the bride of a pirate 
prince — if princes are to be found among pirates — and 
her wardrobe should be worthy of a Fatima. She should 
choose where they would go and what they would see, 
and he would have her so honoured and worshipped and 
waited upon wherever they went, that she would alto- 
gether forget the existence of a conventional code of 
morals and a scowling Mrs. Grundy. Australia, he re- 
flected, though it made such a large spot on the chart, 
was, after all, an unconsidered, unimportant, out-of-the- 
way corner of the world, inhabited by a mere handful 
of people, whose opinions could carry no weight beyond 
their own little circle. Among his own acquaintances in 
England no one knew or cared» about Australia a straw ; 


HOW THE RIFT IS TO BE WIDENED. 305 

and by keeping his yacht in the South Seas or about 
the South American coast until matters were settled, he 
would answer for it that not a soul would be wiser for 
their adventures when he and Pauline should make their 
appearance at home as lawful man and wife. A story 
of Wilkie Collins’s, in which two of the characters, ap- 
parently united in wedlock, lead a long, calm, and un- 
questioned existence of many years together, until they 
are killed in a railway accident on their return from a 
tardy marriage ceremony, occurred to him as a reassuring 
recollection. 

The obstacle of orthodoxy, which might have been a 
very serious one, had, too, no existence in Pauline’s case. 
No, all things considered, the plan of carrying her off 
was a possible and feasible one. It required for its suc- 
cess only boldness, constancy, and a firm determination 
not to be beaten. And the prize was worth the struggle. 
No good things’ were ever obtained without fighting for 
them. 

At this point in his reflections Sir Francis looked at 
his watch. It was between two and three in the morn- 
ing — a time at which projects that look impracticable in 
the daylight seem comparatively easy of accomplishment. 
Then he took from his finger the serpent-ring that he 
had worn there since he had shown it to Pauline, and 
turned it slowly round and round. The light from the 
Algerian lantern fell upon the poisoned gem, making it 
burn like a miniature star. Sir Francis seemed to have 
a fascination for examining it closely to-night. He held 
' it up to the light, as though to make quite sure that the 
globule wore its normal aspect, and only dropped the ring 
reluctantly and finally in its hiding-place after bestowing 
upon it a long and minute scrutiny. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

HOW THE WEDGE WAS DRIVEN IN. 


“My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 

And every tongue brings in a several tale, 

And every tale condemns me for a villain.” 

— Shakspere. 

If, under the influence of his wife’s agnosticism. George’s 
early faith in “ Old Nick and his pitchfork ” liad 
undergone a weakening process, the course of events 
during the next few weeks was calculated to revive 
it with redoubled force. His faith in Old Nick with- 
out the pitchfork, that is to say ; for, to use his own 
expression, George seemed to have the “ devil’s own 
luck.” Everything he ventured (and most of his trans- 
actions now were ventures) seemed to succeed. He 
backed the right horses. He held innumerable sequences 
at loo. He turned up the king at Scarce with astonish- 
ing frequency. He lived in a fever of excitement; 
rushing off to races, pigeon-shootings, cricket-matches, 
billiard-tournaments — wherever indeed he could put 
something on in the day-time — and sitting out his 
companions at the card-table every niglit. Pauline, who 
seemed to be prone during this epoch to fall into long 
self-concentrated reveries, would occasionally arouse her- 
self to address a few words of serious expostulation to 
her husband. 

But George’s rejoinder was invariably the same. 

‘‘ Don’t fluff, old woman ! and for the Lord’s sake 
don’t preach, or you’ll turn the luck against me. 
I’m in form, by Jove, and you ought to encourage me 
to go in and win. That Segrave’s a jolly good fellow, 
I can tell you, and knows how to lose like a Briton. 
’Pon my word, I’m almost ashamed of the luck I have 
sometimes. That’s all stuff about being lucky with 
cards and unlucky in love. Fve been lucky in love, for 
I’ve got you ; and as for the cards — Lord ! you should see 
the hands I get. I’m the wonder of the place — I am ! ” 

306 


HOW THE WEDGE WAS DRIVEN IN. 


307 


And if he had a moment to spare, George would 
demonstrate the fact by making Pauline hold in her 
hand a, certain number of cards out of an ever- ready 
pack he would produce. Thereupon he would arrange 
the cards of an imaginary Brown, Jones, and Robinson, 
and proceed to show by what an extraordinary chance, 
coupled, of course, with good play, his own tiand had 
enabled him to take all the tricks from the said Browm, 
Jones, and Robinson, and finally to sweep an imaginary 
pool of ninety sovereigns into his pocket. 

Pauline w^ould go through this little comedy * in the 
hope of making him listen to reason afterwards. But 
a curious inability to fix his thoughts upon anything 
but his present luck seemed to have overtaken George. 
Once only he asked his wife if she were dull. 

She answered, “ No,” with a somewhat unsatisfactory 
smile. 

To be sure she was Death on books,” George re- 
flected ; but . he quite intended she should “ have a 
good time of it” before his luck turned. Sometimes 
he would take her to the theatre, sitting out the play 
with a wild impatience to have the curtain fall finally, 

that he might be able to betake himself to the card- 

table. On more than one occasion, when Sir Francis 
Segrave had happened to look into the box where 

husband and wife were seated, George had rushed off 
for a game of billiards, leaving Pauline under her 
friend’s protection. A feverish restlessness seemed to 

have taken possession of him. To fix his attention even 
upon ' a - sensational drama was an effort that fatigued 
his brain. Often he answered at random. Pie was 
not given to analysing his own sensations, but there 
were moments when it flashed across his mind that 
he must be “going the pace a little too fast — he 
felt so dashed queer.” Yet at the card-table all his 
clearness of comprehension returned, and he gave proof 
of a lucidity and a clairvoyance that rendered him, as he 
had said himself, the wonder of the place. 

Pauline meanwhile was letting herself drift with the 
current. There was no longer any mention now of Sir 
Francis’s departure. When he came into her box at 
the theatre she would turn her head with a smile of 
recognition in her eyes, and then fix her attention again 
upon the play. She had known he was coming, and 


3o8 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


only now that he was there the acting would have its 
full meaning for her. It was so with everything. A 
passage in a book, a chance effect in a sunset sky, 
Chubby’s latest departure in orthography — all these, 
like everything else that moved her, must be imparted 
to her friend before they seemed to yield their full 
flavour. At the theatre, when the play was going on, 
a glance exchanged with him, at a funny or pathetic 
or even badly-rendered phrase, did duty for a whole 
conversation. 

If George had not been entirely wrapped up in a 
web of his own weaving, through which he seemed to 
be able to discern nothing save winning horses and 
winnirig cards, he could not have failed to perceive the 
change that had come over his wife. Not, perhaps, 
as regarded himself, for he had almost come to accept 
the position of giving more than he received, but as 
regarded her general manner and tone of thought. She 
seemed to have a new zest for things. She ,would 
array herself to go and see a cricket or football match, 
upon a hot-wind afternoon, with as much alacrity and 
joyousness as though “ innings ” and “ scores ” had not 
been as Greek and Latin to her. Her eyes would 
sparkle as she fastened the invariable bunch of rosebuds 
against her neck. Somehow she seemed always to be 
environed by flowers in these days. There were no 
longer any signs either of the listlessness that had marked 
her bearing at Rubria, when she used to sit watching 
the burning logs in the winter time, or loitered upon 
the verandah on a summer evening. True, her eyes 
had betimes an absent look, and more than once she 
did not seem to hear when he addressed her, or she 
answered with a start, as though her thoughts had been 
far away. But the nature of her reveries had evidently 
undergone a change. 

But, as I have said, these signs of the times were 
unheeded by George. To connect the rosebuds, the 
day-dreams, or the new interest in cricket and football, 
witii Sir Francis Segrave, was an idea the less likely to 
occur to him that the friendship of the latter seemed 
to be bestowed in such a great measure upon himself. 
Hardly a day passed in which the two men were not 
togetlier; and when they were about to separate, after 
an inspection of horses at Kirk’s, or a game of billiards 


HOW THE WEDGE WAS DRIVEN IN. 


309 


at the Athenaeum, one or the other would be sure to 
remember that So-and-so was to have his revenge the 
same evening, and an appointment would be made 
that had the invariable effect of keeping George out 
for the greater part of the night. At first Pauline 
accepted this order of things quietly. As ignorant of 
the ways of a husband as any convent-bred wghi/^e^ 
she was prepared to believe that it was part of the 
usual matrimonial arrangement for the wife to remain 
alone with her books and work, while the husband saw 
his friends at the club, and enjoyed a man’s pastimes 
in their society. Besides, she had her thoughts for 
company. 

Every day brought some new kind of experience 
that left a stimulating recollection behind it.' It might 
be only a word, a look, a lingering pressure of the 
hand. It was enough to make her feel that she was 
all in all to her friend, who had so nobly adopted the 
role of her guardian spirit. 

But even the impalpable presence of this devoted 
friend did not suffice, at the end of a certain time, to 
quiet the misgivings she was gradually beginning to 
feel. It was not only that George spent all his nights 
at the card-table. I'here were times when he returned 
to her quite unlike himself. His words would run into 
each other, and he would stumble about the bed- 
chamber, and utter exclamations that made her blood 
run cold. The most of the time she did not under- 
stand what he was saying, but it did not require a 
glossary to tell her that the incoherent expressions he 
used were of a nature to defile her ears. At first she 
would shiver and cry, feeling a forlorn impulse to run 
out ifpon the landing in her night-dress, to get away 
from his terrifying presence. Even the sound of her 
distressed voice, that had never failed hitherto to bring 
him to her side with words of tender reassurance, 
seemed to have no effect upon him at these times. 
The dread of seeing him return in this condition 
was becoming a nightmare to Pauline. The reading 
of “Renee de Mauperin,” or such other books as her 
friend chose for her, even the keen interest of linger- 
ing over the marked passages, and guessing at the 
thoughts that had prompted them, was powerless to 
help her. She was beginning to dread her nights like 


310 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


any child who is frightened of the dark. Those inter- 
minable hours during which she would lie wide awake 
listening to every sound. The dreary intervals between 
one and two, between two and three, only broken at 
the hour and half-hour by the spasmodic strokes of the 
asthmatic clock in the adjoining room. 

The tension of nerves that would precede George’s re- 
turn, and the agonised moments of suspense that must 
elapse before she could determine in what mood he had 
come. She had learned to distinguish between his moods 
now. Sometimes he was incoherently elated, at other 
times he would be stupidly depressed. Most awful of 
all, he would sometimes be violent and abusive, kicking 
over the objects in his way, and swearing at the wife 
whom he adored when he heard her reproachful exclama- 
tion of “ Oh, George, do you know what time it is ? ” as 
he entered the room. 

How would it end? Who would help her? Every 
morning, when George had returned to his right mind, he 
would make her a solemn promise that he would give up 
that cursed gambling, which was killing him, and go back 
to the station. If she had insisted upon his doing' so 
instantly, packing their portmanteaux resolutely, and keep- 
ing her husband in sight until the moment of depar- 
ture had arrived, there is no doubt that in twenty-four 
hours’ time they would have been out of reach of all 
further dnnger at Rubria. But was it not going from 
Scylla to Charybdis, or to use a more homely simile, out 
of the frying-pan into the fire? Though she resolved 
every night that she would make George come home on 
the morrow, when the morrow came she found herself 
wavering and irresolute. The nights in Melbourne were 
very terrible, both for him and for her; but there was 
large compensation in the day. And both day and night 
at Rubria there was dreary, unending monotony. Only 
to think of the dragged-out, burning days in the midst of 
the shadeless wastes, with the little homestead heated 
through and through like an oven, and the flies and 
mosquitoes devouring the inmates alive — with George 
lounging about without an aim or occupation of any kind, 
killing time by dozing, and whistling, and teasing the 
dogs, or alternating the pastime of spooning with his wife 
with that of yawning with the McCloskys — what could 
be more wearisome than this? There was danger in 


HOW THE WEDGE WAS DRIVEN IN. 


311 

remaining in town. Nay — worse than danger. There 
was conscious sin, and there was mental suffering besides. 
But at least there was excitement. There was sensation. 
There was interest in life. At Rubria there was stagna- 
tion — deadly, unendurable stagnation. Here she was 
walking upon the brink of a precipice, but there were 
rich blooms to be gathered on the way. There she would 
be upon a safe path, but upon a path so arid that she 
shrank from following it. Yet things could not go on 
upon their present footing for long, though she was 
becoming afiaid somehow to look forward. 

No ! things could not go on so for long. There was 
a way out of the trouble, though it was a way that 
even to think about would have seemed a crime a few 
short months ago. But she had changed now ! George 
would never be able to call her a “ sucking-dove ” again. 
She had thoughts that ke would not have dared to 
harbour. It was doubtful, she reflected within herself, 
whether he would even have understood them. She had 
learned that wrong and right were only relative terms, 
and that human beings endowed with brains did not 
really accept the old-fashioned interpretation of them. 
She had learned that the system by which marriages 
are rendered binding, was a hideous mistake, and that 
the only pure and ' holy union is the one sanctified 
and maintained by mutual inclination and passion. She 
had learned, besides, the views and conduct of all the 
lights of the world who had defied the marriage laws. 
In fact, under the influence of the books she read and 
the views she heard, Pauline’s mind was gradually be- 
ginning to expand in a direction George had never 
contemplated. 

At' its present rate of progress, Sir Francis calculated 
that his time of probation would last even a shorter 
time than he had been prepared to endure. He ad- 
mitted that George played into his hands admirably. 
It was not very hard to lead the young man on, step 
by ste}), along the downward path. Already George 
was beginning to look what he himself called “played 
out,” and before long the influence of stale smoke, 
strong s]flrits, and a half-distracted brain, wcmld render 
him a comijanion from whom a lefined woman might 
well shrink. Sir I'Vancis had unbounded faith in the 
influence of physical repulsion. Only let him succeed 


312 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


in introducing that factor into his comi)iitationSj and 
he was safe, d'his lack of spiritual sympathy between 
Pauline and her husband — there was no denying it — • 
w^as a very strong point. Put a little personal antipathy 
would go farther even than this. 

'Phere was another force to which Sir Francis Segrave 
also looked, and did not look in vain. It was the force 
of Pauline’s own sentiment for himself, that he sought 
by every means in his power to strengthen in her heart. 
As far as mere phrases went, he had been as good as 
his word.- There had been no love passages between 
himself and George Drafton’s wife from the time that he 
had told her on the yacht that she was all in all to him. 
But the thousand several tongues which love as well as 
conscience possesses repeated to her during every hour 
of the day that her friend lived for her and her alone. 
There were volumes of unspoken tenderness in his every 
tone and look. His eyes would question her to discover 
how siie looked and felt with an anxieiy and eagerness 
more eloquent than any words. And then, as Pauline 
reminded herself constantly, what a chivalrous, heroic 
devotion it was that led this man for her sake to follow 
her husband into the hateful atmosphere of the card- 
room, night after night, in the vain effort to rescue him 
from himself and send him home to her in his right 
mind. She could not render him responsible for the 
failure of his generous endeavours ; for George seemed 
somehow to have gone quite beyond bounds. As to 
suspecting for an instant that the weaker nature of her 
husband was yielding to the relentless purpose of the 
stronger, that was a notion that could not by any possi- 
bility have entered Mrs. Drafton’s brain. Francis — for 
so she thought of him now — was her friend. It was 
not a devil’s part, but the part of a knight of chivalry, 
that he had taken upon ^ himself in her behalf. 

Little by little she was learning to feel as he intended 
that she should feel. Dependence on him; need of 
him; belief in him. And he knew that there was more 
than this besides. During those long night-watches, 
when the sense of her life as it was. contrasted with 
what it might have been, weighed most heavily upon 
her young soul, did nothing stronger than gratitude 
and affection speak to her out of the silence ? Did 
it not seem, sometimes, as though the friendship that 


HOW THE WEDGE WAS DRIVEN IN. 


313 


was to have been her salvation only made her actual 
lot appear more unendurable than ever by com- 
parison ? 

By comparison with 7e>/ial ? Even in the darkness, 
Pauline’s cheeks would burn as the answer to this 
question suggested itself to her imagination, and the 
vague outline of a dream of bliss, in which she would 
sail eternally over summer seas, alone with her friend, 
intellect, heart, and entire being all replete w'ith one entire 
and satisfying reciprocal love, would shape itself in iier 
mind. At these times she would tell herself that she had 
tried to be a good wife to George, and that it was 
his ow'n fault if she had failed. The sacrifice must not 
be all on one side, after all. And it was not her fault 
either if her scheme of remaining loyal to him, and 
seeking compensation in a pure and elevating attach- 
ment to another, threatened to turn out a failure. She 
had not calculated upon feeling as she did. There 
seemed to be so much of agitation in her present exist- 
ence; and yet she felt such an awful reluctance to bring 
it to an end, and to return with George to so-called duty 
and stagnation at Rubria. She could not forego the 
pleasure of seeing her friend daily, yet the conditions 
under which they met often seemed to spoil the happi- 
ness of meeting. It was a tantalising happiness at 

best. If she really went back to Rubria with her 
husband, for Pauline was wont now to couple her return 
to her home with an “//i” she must at least exchange 
an unhampered farewell with her friend first. 

The popular notion that it is almost as sinful to 

meditate upon forbidden fruit as to taste of it is not 
entirely' without foundation. Pauline’s habitual tone 
of thought, or her “mental attitude” (to use an ex- 
pression for ever consecrated by a great writer), had 
prepared her in a measure to accept a proposition Sir 
Francis Segrave made one day when he thought the 

time was ripe for it. 

It took place at a cricket match. The day was very 
warm, and Pauline was walking with her friend up and 
down a secluded part of the Richmond lawn, while 

George, with his hat pushed back from his brows, was 
leaning against a fence, watching the game with a weary 
expression upon his tired face, and telling himself dole- 
fully that cricket was not half the game it used to be 


314 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


in Ms time. George’s time, to tell the truth, did not 
date back for a very considerable number ot years. 
Indeed, he was younger than the champion player of 
the eleven, who might be seen “bowling” in the dis- 
tance at this very moment in his white flannel suit, aim- 
ing his ball with a skill which brought forth a sound 
of clapping that shook the air -like a mighty shower of 
hail. But cards and drink were making him feel pre- 
maturely old. The three horizontal lines in his forehead 
were turning into permanent furrows, and his shoulders 
had acquired a curious stoop that Sir Francis noted with 
a rapid glance, as he walked up and down the lawn with 
George’s wife by his side. 

Pauline had been unusually silent. In the general 
way her tongue unloosed itself during these hours of 
sauntering in her friend’s company, and thoughts that 
her books or her limited experiences had suggested to 
her flowed forth unbidden. But on this particular 

afternoon, whether because of the heat, or because of 

the oppressive recollection of George’s home-coming the 
night before, or because of the consciousness that her 
stay in Melbourne was drawing to a close, objective in- 
terests seemed to find no place in her mind. She had 
long ago reached a stage of intimacy with her com- 
panion which left her free to remain silent when she 

chose. She had also learned to feel so sure of his 
unspoken sympathy, that she found a kind of solace 
in turning over her sorrows and perplexities in her own 
mind as she walked by his side. 

It was he who broke the silence first. 

“ What cud of sweet and bitter thought are you chewing 
all this time, I wonder?” he said. 

“ More bitter than sweet,” answered Pauline in a low 
voice. 

“ If you would only let me help you ! ” he said passion- 
ately ; and then the barriers gave way and the torrent 
flowed forth. 

They had reached a corner in which, under pretext 
of getting a “ breath of air,” they were at a safe distance 
from the cricket-loving crowd. Pauline sate upon a 
bench, with her eyes fixed upon the parched turf at 
her feet, while her ears drank in one of those im- 
passioned appeals that constitute What the French call 
une declaration. She offered no protest. In her 


HOW THE WEDGE WAS DRIVEN IN. 


3if 

heart of hearts she was consenting all the time. Was 
it love? Was it wantonness? Whatever it might have 
been, she knew that she was Iired out of her life with 
George, and that to dwell, even in imagination, upon 
the picture her friend painted in such vivid colours, was 
like inhaling a veritable elixir. 

“We can’t speak here,” he said suddenly, with ill- 
suppressed impatience. People were beginning to wander 
in the same direction in search of shade. An “ engaged ” 
couple with heads bent towards each other passed slowly 
by. “Will you grant me one sweet favour? Give me 
one little proof of your affection for me? Darling, I 
would give my very life for you; you know that^ don’t 
you? All I will ask of you is to let me meet you this 
evening, and take you on board the yacht for an hour? 
Your husband is going to the cricketers’ dinner. I have 
so much to say to you. We can talk without fear of 
interruption. If you would rather only row about in 
the moonlight, we need not go on board the yacht at 
all. But I must have a talk to you. What I have to 
say may alter the whole tenour of our lives. Pauline, 
my love, you trust me, don’t you?” 

“ It is myself I don’t trust,” said Pauline in a whisper, 
shivering visibly despite the heat of the December sun. 

“ d'hen trust to me for both^' he urged. “ I will be at 
the corner of Market Street at eight to-night. I will 
wait until half-past, and then I will go to the hotel and 
find out whether you are alone — you will come?” 

“\es,,,I will come!” said Pauline simply. Then she 
rose from her seat and walked to where her husband 
was standing. He looked at her with dull eyes as she 
approached. 

“ I was just going to look you up,” he said. “ We’ll 
go back, I think. The game’s not worth looking at ; and 
I’ve got a dashed headache besides.” 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


HOW THE LAST STROKE OF ALL CAMS 
■ TO MISS. 

“ The best laid schemes o’ mice and men 
Gang aft agley.” — BURNS. 

Of all the human traits that cynics gloat over, there is 
none more remarkable than the one which leads us to be 
insincere with our secret selves, and makes us even essay to 
pretend to our own consciences that our motives and inten- 
tions are other than we really know them to be. Pauline 
was driven to resort to this form of special pleading as, 
sitting alone in the familiar room at Scott’s, she tremblingly 
reflected upon the promise she had given to her friend. 

George had gone to a dinner in honour of the cricketers, 
and there was not the least chance of his returning before 
three or four o’clock in the morning. He had said as 
he went out that it was about time to think of making a 
start for home, and that Pauline might drop a line to 
“old Mother McClosky” to expect them the following 
Saturday. The announcement had brought his wife face 
to face with a question that had been lying dormant in 
her mind for a long time past. “ Should she return with 
him or notV^ The solemn, sandy-haired waitqr, who was 
accustomed to bring in Mrs. Drafton’s five o’clock tea upon 
a highly polished nickel platter, cast a demurely curious 
glance at the motionless figure seated on the sofa as he 
entered the room. The phrase “wrapped in thought” 
might almost have been literally applied to it; for in the 
concentration of her reverie Pauline seemed to see nothing 
that passed with her bodily eyes. 

The prospect of an immediate return to Rubria had 
brought the familiar once more from its hiding-place, 
and its suggestions were of a terrible description. “ It 
will be worse than ever now,” it said ; “ your husband 
has got into the habit of drinking, which he never had 
before, and you will be quite at his mercy. You will 

316 


THE LAST STROKE OF ALL. 


317 


be shut up alone with him in that isolated little home- 
stead, which will be like an oven at this season, swarming 
with flies and mosquitoes. Without interests, without re- 
sources of any kind, with no hope nor prospect of escape, 
your life will be so intolerable that you will end by hating 
him, and then existence will indeed be a hell. Better take 
things in time. Run away, home to Sydney, as you thought 
of doing the day after the Cup ; or tell your friend, Francis 
Segrave, who worships the very ground you tread on, how 
you feel. Tell him all about it this evening. He is much 
cleverer than you. He is honoured and respected wherever 
he goes. Let him take the responsibility of your actions.” 

“ No — no — no ! ” Pauline said to herself vehemently, 
when the familiar had reached this point. Then came 
the recollection of the promise she had allowed herself 
to make an hour ago, and now it was that it became 
necessary to temporise with her conscience. 

“I have only promised to go with him to prove my 
full trust in him, and my belief in the purity of his 
affection,” she argued within herself; “he deserves some 
such proof of it, after all he has done and suffered for 
me during the past fortnight. It would be mean and 
cowardly to refuse it. And has he not promised that he 
would always be guided by my least wish in everything? 
Whatever becomes of me, 1 shall never regret having given 
him this last proof of my entire trust in him.” 

But even while Pauline was reasoning in this fashion, 
Truth was proclaiming another version of the case, and 
obstinately refusing to be argued down. 

“ Whatever you intend, or make yourself believe that . 
you intend;” said Truth, “ you know quite well that you 
are going to put yourself into a position in which you 
may not be able to carry out your intentions, if they are 
all you say. Don’t go at all. The old warning .about 
not playing with fire is a very wise one, if you don’t want to 
be burned ! Of course, if you are prepared to burn, you 
may kindle as great a conflagration as you please; but 
don’t persuade yourself that you are going to pour water 
upon the flames. You are going to throw oil upon them. 
You may go with the resolution of pouring water, but the 
very fact, of your going at all renders that almost impossible.” 

Pauline caught at this “almost.” There was still a loop- 
hole of escai)e. “ He loves me unselfishly,^^ she said, 
“and that means that I am entirely safe with him.” 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


318 

At this instant the solemn, sandy-haired waiter knocked 
at the door, and in reply to a faint “ Come in,” entered 
the room with a letter, which he presented to Mrs. Drafton 
upon the inevitable nickel platter, with the air of an 
officer of state presenting a petition to a monarch. 
Pauline dared not open it under the eyes of this officious 
personage. Her face grew white as the letter itself as 
she took it into her hands, and she could hardly command 
her voice to tell the man, who was fidgeting with the kettle 
hissing upon the spirit-lamp, that she would ring when she 
wanted him again. As soon as she was alone, she opened 
the envelope with eager, trembling fingers, her breath coming 
and going rapidly, her bosom heaving. The handwriting 
was bold and clear, and her eyes ran over the contents as 
easily as though she had been reading a printed document. 

“ My darling,” the letter began, and the “ my ” was 
dashed underneath with a vigorous stroke, as though 
the writer had dared whomsoever in the world to dispute 
his right of possession, “the time has come for making 
a great resolve. By right of our love for each other, 
which is a stronger, holier tie, believe me, than all the 
artificial bonds invented by men (dating from the days 
when the house, the wife, the ox, and the ass, were 
regarded as so many chattels), your place in the world 
should be henceforth by my side. I ivant you, Pauline. 
Day and night I hunger for your presence. I want you 
all to myself, darling, to love and worship and honour 
you. with my body and soul, to the end of our days. 
The claim I have upon you is that, in your heart, you 
belong to me already. I know that there are many 
things to be considered besides the gratification of the 
one supreme want of our lives. In many cases there are 
obstacles which render the attainment of our heart’s 
desire impossible. But is this so in ozir case ? I have 
considered our position with the profoundest care. I 
have thought of all that is to be said for and against my 
project ; I have weighed risks, suffering, disadvantages, as 
though I were entirely disinterested, and the more deeply 
I have pondered, the stronger, my conclusion has be- 
come. There is only one' possible solution. Pauline, 
my own, you must come away with me, and when we 
have taken this one irrevocable step, the rest will all 
arrange itself in the way I shall now explain to you. 

“I will leave our own immediate future out of the 


THE LAST STROKE OF ALL, 


319 


question. I will so hedge you round, my loved one, 
with tenderness and adoration, that you will have no 
time to think of anything but the present. We will 
wander about the world in the yacht, stopping wheiever 
there is something wonderful or beautiful to be seen. 
And you have no idea yet how much that is wonderful 
and curious there is to see. I will teach you navigation, 
and you shall take me where you will. But my delight 
will be to surround my darling with all the loveliest 
and rarest things I can discover. The days will not 
be. long enough for all we shall have to do in them. 
Then, of course, you will have your own boudoir and 
sanctum, where even 1 may not enter without permission. 
You shall be queen absolute there and everywhere else. 
For ourselves I have no fear. I honestly believe I could 
make your life happy if you would trust yourself to me. 

“ But for the effect of our step upon others besides 
ourselves. I will first consider your husband. Do 
you know, darling, that, for your sake, I have watched 
him closely for a long time past ? and that this is 
my honest opinion. Even if I were not there at all, 
even if you had no affection for another in your heart,. 
I should still advise you to leave him. Your marriage 
was a hideous mistake ; but the worst consequences 
of it may yet be averted. He is young and you are 
young. You have no responsibilities. No one will be 
hurt by your living asunder. I will not deny that 
your leaving him will cause him pain ; he will suffer 
severely, for, in his own way — a very inferior and 
animal way too — -he loves you. But his nature (I have 
studied it closely) is not capable of suffering either 
very deeply or for very long at a time. The worst 
of his suffering will be as nothing com{)ared with what 
you have been through already, and what he and you 
must both endure ..if you force yourself to prolong the 
unnatural tie. It is fairer and more loyal to him as well 
as to yourself to tell him that the marriage he forced you 
into was a mistake, and that you desire to be freed from 
it. Y^our freedom might be hard to obtain under ordi- 
nary circumstances, but your coming away with me would 
render it very easy. There would be rage and thirst for 
vengeance on your husband’s part at first. He would not 
consider that he had chiefly his own greed and unscrupu- 
lousness to blame. But I would leave an adviser by his 


320 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


side (you know he is very easily swayed), who would soon 
make him hear reason. As you would have ceased to be 
his wife, he would have no other resource than to ask to 
be divorced from you, and the divorce would be granted 
without the least difficulty. Of that I have made myself 
certain ; you • need know and hear nothing about it. I 
will take the responsibility of all that part of the business ; 
but some day, at- some English port where we are stax ing, 

I will say, ‘ My darling, will you ' go through the marriage 
form with me here, that I may be able to present you 
in England as my wife ? ’ Then you will know that all has 
ended as it should. As for the effect upon your own 
belongings, for whom you would sacrifice everything in 
life, I have thought of that too. The only people to 
consider are your grandmgther and your funny little 
uncle. How do you suppose your coming away with me 
will affect them 1 I think I know your grandmother well 
enough, from all you have told me about her, to be 
certain that she will bless the day when you leave George 
Drafton. She is without prejudices, either religious or 
social. She wants you to be happy, and I shall know 
how to convince her of the honesty of my intentions. I 
am willing to run all risks, and to sacrifice everything to 
the object of making you my wife. You have no sisters 
whose prospects you might damage by such a step. You 
will not cause one single tear to flow. We will get your 
grandmother and Chubby to come and stay with us when 
we are married, and the little fellow may suppose you 
were a widow when you became my wife, if you choose. 
1 will write to Madame Delaunay to justify the step we 
are taking. Have no fear, my own darling; you do care 
for me a little, don’t you ? Oh, Pauline, I love you 
as I never thought to love in my life. But I will respect 
your least wish. I will not hurry you unduly, my love. 
When you come this evening to see what I hope you will 
look upon as your future home, we will talk quite quietly 
over my plan. I will wait for you as long as you please. 
If you can think of any better one, you shall tell it to. me. 
I will take account of every lingering scruple you may feel. 
If you want to know m£ better first, I will take patience. 
1 will submit to any test you like to put me to. But do 
listen to me, darling. Don’t turn a deaf ear to my appeal. 
Be reasonable enough and honest enough to look the 
situation boldly in the face, and don’t let yourself be 


THE LAST STROKE OF ALL. 


321 


frightened by old bugbears of forms and words. When 
you come to know about all the great and enlightened 
souls that have broken through conventional trammels, 
you will find that even from a timid woman’s point of 
view there are hundreds of good precedents for the step 
I am urging you to take. But I will not weary you with 
my reasons. Remember — eight o’clock this evening. The 
corner of Market Street and Collins Street. Cover your- 
self with a long cloak and veil. I will have a w^aggonette 
ready to drive us to Sandridge. The yacht has been 
anchored not far from the pier. We will spend an hour 
. on board, and I will bring you back before twelve. 
Ever since our happy time in the Royal Park, and those 
few^ instants on board, I have never had you to myself 
for an instant. And I long so passionately to tell you 
all I feel — to look unhampered into your sweet eyes — 
to imagine for a few brief instants that the dream of 
my life has been realised. Whatever you may resolve 
in the future, you must grant me that one short hour 
of bliss. Have I not kept our compact? Have I not 
forced myself, until now, to withhold all expression of 
my over-mastering love for you ? There is not an instant 
in which you are ever out of my thoughts. Sometimes 
I have a fancy that you are actually near me, and I 
stretch out my arms to grasp a shadow. . . . What right 
have, I, you may ask, to tell you all this ? Hitherto you 
have been to me as a marble Galatea upon her pedestal. 
Yet I dare, to fancy that for me the marble will wake to life 
some day. . . . But I cannot let my imagination run upon 
these things. My heart throbs as though it w^ould burst. 
Pauline — Pauline, I love you too well” 

The letter ended abruptly. There was no date and no 
signature. It seemed indeed to be still warm from the hands 
of the writer. Pauline laid it d^wn, and, leaning back upon 
the sofa in the unconscious attitude of Alma Tadema’s 
Greek girl in his picture of “ Quiet Pets,” fixed her eyes 
upon the ground and abandoned herself to her thoughts. 

What a world of misfits and cross-purposes it was, to 
be sure ! Had she only been free, how her heart would 
have leaped at the prospect of entering upon such an 
existence as the one her lover had pictured ! What a 
paradise it seemed as she thought of it ! Her ideal, as 
long as she could remember, had been to have for a 
husband somebody who would “teach her things.” Not 

X 


J22 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


an old pedant, but the incarnation of the “strong man,” 
as shadowed forth by Tennyson and Carlyle — a being 
upon whom she could expend all the latent fund of hero- 
worship and enthusiasm she was conscious of possessing ; 
and if in addition to acknowledging this prince of 
husbands, fate had decreed that she should travel about 
the world by his side — the very words “ to travel ” having 
always had a kind of magic significance for her — why, lier 
imagination could have gone no farther. The very highest 
and airiest of her castles in Spain would have taken solid 
substance and become her permanent dwelling-place. 

There was the possibility. But what was the stern 
reality ? “ How impossible to know what temptation 

means till it comes in our way,” she reflected. “ I am so 
sick of my life at Rubria — and oh, so tired of. being 
married. To escape from it in the way this letter suggests 
seems almost just. Perhaps not Just — but excusable. 
And I have such a desperate longing — more than a longing 
— a craving for just a little happiness before I am too old. 
Yet that feeling would not excuse me. The only, possible 
excuse I could have would be the one of being help- 
lessly in love. And I don’t know ; I canH know whether 
I am rightly in love or not. Perhaps I would have been 
if I were not married already. But how can my belong- 
ing to George, whom I don’t love properly, in any way 
affect the question of my sentiment for another? And 
yet I feel that it affects it. Would running away be a 
crime^ I wonder? I know a great many people who 
would say it was a crime. Yet Francis wants me to run 
away — and for my own sake as much as for his. Oh, if 
I could only know what to do ! To-night I will tell him 
everything. He will understand. He will wait for any 
length of time, he says. It is a very happy thing, in 
any case — rightly or wrongly, no matter — to be loved in 
that way. But it is cheating myself to say that I will ask 
Francis to advise me against his own cause. Besides, when 
I am with him, have 1 even a will of my own ? I don’t 
seem to need a will; and that is part of the happiness.” 

Arrived at this point in her confused and contradictory 
reflections, Pauline took up the letter and read it once 
again. A sound in the passage outside made her start 
violently. She hurried into the adjoining room, and tear- 
ing the epistle into a thousand tiny scraps, threw them 
behind the coals in the dusty grate. This operation 


THE LAST STROKE OP ALL. 


323 


achieved, she began to pace up and down the room in 
restless agitation. George’s clothes, which he had hastily 
thrown aside for an evening suit, were scattered about the 
floor. She picked them up mechanically, and proceeded 
to hang them upon the peg behind the door, holding 

them at arm’s length on account of the odour of stale 

smoke and strong spirits that they exhaled. A curious 
look gathered in her brown eyes as she put them away. 
Her pale lips were set as with a new resolve. George’s 
smoke-impregnated coat had evoked a vision of his return 
the night before (or rather the morning before), when he 
had stumbled into the room with a candle in his hand, 
knocking up against the furniture and uttering meaning- 
less blasphemies as he did so. She remembered that 
she had sat up in bed, and looked at his white face with 

eyes dilated with terror. He had turned upon her, and 

asked her, in a brutal voice, “What the devil she stopped 
awake for — on purpose to annoy him?” And with a sick 
despair at her heart she had turned away and pretended 
to sleep. Why should she endure a life like this? Come 
what might, she would escape from it. Better to “throw 
her bonnet over the windmills,” as grand’mere called it, 
now — at once ! Then there could be no return. Oh, the 
heavenly peace ! The intoxicating bliss of the life that 
her lover offered her! The interest — the charm — the 
harmony of it ! It was not in human nature to resist it. 
Better " fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. 
Better a few months of joy than a dragging lifetime of 
dreary, unsatisfying, tormenting existence. And then 
there was always the ring, if the worst came to the 
worst. She had her solution now. She would go on board 
the yacht with Francis to-night. • She would tell him 
everythmg. She would promise everything. She would 
make only one condition. He must divulge the secret 
of the ring, and he must give it to her to wear— to wear 
always — on her own finger. And George might do as 
he liked, and drink, and gamble, and — and — it was a 
hard, set look that came into the bride’s face now — at 
least she would never, never think of him again. 

The evening was wearing on. The solemn, sandy- 
haired waiter waS' laying dinner for one, and the asth- 
matic clock was whirring in the strenuous and painful 
eflbrt to produce the first stroke of seven. In another 
hour Pauline would steal out of the hotel like a thief 


3M 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


in the night, to meet her lover at the apr)ointed tryst- 
ing place. But she would wear a long dark cloak.- 
not flaunting scarlet and ostrich-feathers like the girls 
she had seen the other night, who. Heaven help her, for 
all she knew had taken the first step in their down- 
ward career by some such act as the one she was bent 
upon this evening. With her cheeks burning — all their 
pallor gone now — she arranged her black sailor hat, with a 
long gauze veil (used as a defence against Rubria flies), 
in readiness for her nocturnal expedition. Then by way of 
making a feint of eating her dinner, lest the waiter (who 
jNJist know or suspect something, she thought) should have 
his suspicions confirmed, she hurried into the sitting-room 
and seated herself before the solitary meal. 

A telegram wiis lying upon the table. George often 
received telegrams now ; she did not feel at all curious 
as to the contents of this one. But as she put it aside, 
the address of Mrs. Drafton in very plain characters 
struck her sight. She grasped the missive nervously 
and tore it open. Who in the world could telegraph to 
herl Surely Francis, who was so prudent, would not 
mention their appointment in a despatch that might only 
arrive after she had left the hotel. The thought had 
scarcely time to occur to lier before her eyes had 
travelled over the words. And now the paper fell from 
her hands and she uttered a low, involuntary moan. 
The telegram was dated from Beau-Sejour — and was 
signed Delaunay. Its contents were as follows : “ Chubby 
in danger. If you would see him alive, lose not time. 
He asks you unceasingly. Mail steamer leaves Melbourne 
to-night.” To-night? Pauline snatched at the Argus, 
lying on a side-table, . and ran her startled, terrified eyes 
over the first page. The steamer was advertised to 
leave Sandridge at 8.15. There would just be time, by 
making frantic haste, to bundle a change of clothes 
into a small portmanteau, to rush to the train in a 
waggonette, and to get on board the steamer in time 
to leave with it. She had money, thank God. George 
always left her enough of that. All thought of the 
meeting that had filled her mind a few minutes ago was 
banished on the spot. There was no room for it. There 
was no room for anything but the vision of Chubby — 
sick unto death, and wanting her. Oh, would she be 
in time? Would God only let her be in time? It was 


THE LAST STROKE OF ALL, 


325 


cruel of them not to tell her before. They had spoken 
of his being indisposed. Indisposed, indeed ! He was 
going to leave her for ever. And she (wnth a sob) 
might have been too late to go to him. Another quarter 
of an hour and she would have been too late. 

It was while she was engaged in rushing to her ward- 
robe, and breathlessly ramming her clothes into the j)ort- 
manieau, that these distracting reflections flew through 
her brain. In less than ten minutes’ time she had rung 
the sitting-room bell and ordered a cab. 

You will give the telegram to Mr. Drafton when he 
comes in,” she said, gulping down the while a choking 
lump that seemed to rise in her throat with the effort 
to speak. She had added to the telegram the words, I 
have gone to Sydney ; good-bye.” There was no time to 
write to Sir Francis. She would send him a line from the 
steamer if possible. She gave the w'aggonette driver double 
fare, and reached the Hobson’s Bay platform full five 
‘minutes early. An agonising space of time, during which 
parties of passengers for the mail steamer, with friends to 
see them off, crowded into the train, had still to be passed. 
It was the first time she had travelled alone. But her mind 
was too full of strained and painful apprehension for her to 
find room in it for reflecting upon her solitude. Upon 
arriving at Sandridge she followed the stream of people to 
the steapier, carrying her portmanteau in her own hands. 

“ You’re not down for a berth, miss,” said the stewardess, 
eyeing the striking figure, with the piteous red lips and 
pale cheeks, with some suspicion; “and I don’t know 
liow I’m going to make room for you, neither.” 

“ Oh, put me anywhere ! I can lie on the floor. I 
don’t want anything,” cried Pauline, battling with the lump 
again, 'I'hen, unconsciously increasing the stewardess’s 
suspicions by presenting her with a sovereign, she added 
excitedly, “ I must go — there’s somebody ill,” and broke 
down completely. 

“ There, there, miss,” said the stewardess, slipping the 
sovereign into her pock(;t, “don’t take on. You’il see 
he’ll be better when you get there ” (the “ he ” was a 
venture of her own) ; “ and if you ain’t got a ticket, my 
dear, why, just you give me the money — four pound — 
that’s right, and thank you ; and I’ll get it for you all 
right, and we’ll make you up as comfortable a bed on 
the floor as a body could wish lor.” 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, 

" All is change, woe or weal, 

Joy is sorrow’s brother, 

Grief and gladness steal 
Symbols of each other.” 

— Tennyson. 

Would Pauline ever forget that journey? As long as 
memory endured she must recall with a shudder the 
slow labouring of the screw through the rough waves 
of the Rip ; the dragging progress of the long wakeful 
night; the rolling and straining through the weary 
endless morrow ; the advent of the second dreary night, 
during which the white fingers and diamond rings of a 
sick lady passenger impressed themselves upon her 
wakeful vision ; the heavy hours of the second day, and 
the awful tension of mind and nerves as the afternoon 
dragged slowly on ; and bets as to the precise hour of 
the night when they would enter Sydney harbour were 
made by the passengers in the saloon. To avoid having 
to speak, she feigned to feel ill, and lay upon her bed 
on the floor of the ladies’ cabin with her face turned 
to the wall, like the Israelitish king in his despair. 
She could not have said just what her thoughts were all 
this time. The last few months seemed to be blotted 
out of existence, and only the Beau-Sejour life to be 
real. She was tormented by the impossibility of bring- 
ing Chubby’s face exactly before her. She could recall 
the round cheeks, and the fair sunburnt skin, but the 
child’s look would not return in its entirety. She 
spent a great deal of time in the vain effort to conjure 
it up, while her heart' seemed to contract with the 
awful suggestion that perhaps it never would come 
back to her at all. But she would not contemplate 
the notion of Chubby’s dying. The very fact of 
imagining it would seem to imply that there was a pos- 
sibility of resigning herself to it in the end. And she 


AN UNEXPECTED yoURNEY. 


327 


never would resign herself to it. She was quite willing 
to die herself, but Chubby must not die. Yet there 
w'ere moments when a sick, unreasoning despair over- 
came her. Then would come a phase of hope, as 
unreasoning as the despondency to which it was sure 
to yield in the end. Was ever such a purgatorial day 
as that never-ending, sickening, grinding day on the 
mail steamer. There were passengers from home, who 
had gained their sea-legs in the Bay of Biscay, whom 
she heard laughing as they promenaded the deck, 
.or gossiped in the saloon in the confidential tones 
that a long board-ship acquaintanceship had engendered. 
The piano, too, was constantly going, and clink of 
afternoon teacups from private cabins argued the exist- 
ence of many a snug coterie on board. 

Towards the evening of the first day, when the well 
passengers were at dinner, and her sick companions 
'in the ladies’ cabin were feebly swallowing the so- 
called chicken broth brought them by the stewardess, 
Pauline rose from her mattress, huddled a skirt and 
jacket over her night-dress, covered her dishevelled 
locks with the historic sailor hat and veil, and staggered 
up the staircase to the main-deck. 

The warm December wind blew strongly in her 
face ; the sea was high, and. the salt spray from the 

mountainous waves scattered itself over her as she 

stood. It was a w^onderful relief to escape from the 
stifling atmosphere below, even at the cost of feeling 
so giddy and so helpless. She steadied herself by 
leaning against the bulwarks, and looked across the 

ocean at the sunset sky, wdth its piled-up masses of 
purple and gold, dreamily conscious of the grandeur 
of the scene, yet quite incapable of taking any pleasure 
in it. For the first time since her hurried coming 
away, the thought of Chubby gave way before the 
memory of her friend. For full three minutes his 

image mingled itself with the impression of the golden 
light that streamed toward her from the western sky. 
And though she was quite unaware of it at the time, 
the exaltation of her mind (through which so many 
emotions of hope and fear, and love and remorse, had 
been travelling in so short a space of time) found relief 
by the half-unconscious rendering of them in verse. It 
seemed to her afterwards as though the lines had come 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


328 

to her of themselves, without endeavour or effort on 
her own part. She neither wrote them down nor 
thought of them again, yet never afterwards to her 
dying day would the memory of them leave her. 

They rang unpronounced in her own ears thus : — 

** The bars of gold still linger 

Out in the radiant west ; ^ 

Borne down by a blood-red finger, 

The Sun sinks to his rest. 

Gilt and rose ripples, meeting, 

_ Thrill through the western sky. 

As the clouds to His evening greeting 
In letters of flame reply. 

O’er the waste of w’aters desolate, 

O’er the waste of waters cold, 

He throws a robe of violet 
Shot through with ruddy gold. 

In thine eyes so dark and tender. 

But yesternight, mine own. 

Were gleams of his fleeting splendour, 

And now I am left alone. 

Alone with my passionate longing. 

Alone with my thoughts of thee, 

Alone with the memories thronging 
Out of the purple sea.” 

The curious result of the rapid stringing together of 
these verses was that they seemed to have absorbed 
into themselves the image of her friend that Pauline had 
carried about with her hitherto. Whether this is a proof 
that it was her imagination more than her heart that 
had been worked upon by his influence, I cannot deter- 
mine. The fact remains that as soon as she had enshrined 
her emotions in a poem, that seemed to come to her 
while watching the sunset the melody came to the 

tambourine-player in “Numa Roumestan,” mnme cn 
ecoutafit le rossignol^ the strength of them was notably 

diminished. Indeed, when she thought at all of the life 
she had left** behind her, it was the vision of George’s 
consternation upon finding “the wife of his bosom” 

gone, more than any thought of the trouble which her 
friend of yesterday would experience, that haunted her. 
But there was, to tell the truth, little room for either kind 
of reflection. The second long, cruelly long day, was 

nothing but a series of phases of hope and despair on 


AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY. 329 

Chubby’s account. The mind is very like the body when 
it suffers, in respect of the recurrence of acute pain at 
irregular intervals to which it is exposed. Even when 
hope was whispering her “flattering tale” in her ear, 
Pauline knew that in a very short time there would come 
a fresh access of fear and despair, during which she 
would wet her pillow with hot tears of uncontrollable 
anguish. No wonder that she was white and washed-out 
as the journey drew to an end, and that her hands 
trembled to the point of rendering her almost incapable 
of putting on her clothes. Her head swam, her body 
seemed to ache all over. Save a tumbler of milk, brought 
her by the s^tewardess in consideration doubtless of the 
sovereign she had received (for fresh milk was harder to 
obtain than the costliest old wine on board the mail 
steamer), ho food had passed her lips. And never did 
time seem so long or suspense so awful as during the 
passage of the vessel up Sydney harbour. Full two 
hours before - the final arrival at the wharf did our 
heroine strain her eyes in the dark for the lights of her 
native city. She sate by herself upon the deck, changing 
her place for mere restlessness and “fidgetiness” every 
five minutes, and rehearsing the meeting with grand'mere 
alternately from a joyful and a most wretched point 
of view, until her brain as well as her body was wearied 
out. She had brought up her portmanteau from below 
in order to be ready to leave the instant they arrived, and 
now shifted it about with her mechanically, in the vain 
idea of posting herself and it most closely to the gang- 
way which would by and-by connect the steamer with 
the wharf. Vain delusion ! When the bustle of the 
actual arrival really took place, she found herself on the 
wrong side of the deck, and before she could push her 
frantic way through the crowd that seemed suddenly to 
have hemmed her in on all sides, her elbow was seized 
from behind, and a well-known voice cried shrilly in 
her ear. “ Dieu soit loue ! vous voila a la fin, made- 
moiselle — 7 nadame^ c’est h dire, mais on n’y pense pas — 
ah ! c’est la pauvre dame qui sera heureuse de vous voir ! ” 

“ Oh Fifine, c est vous ! And Chubby ? ” gasped Pauline, 
the last question sounding almost like a wail as it burst 
from her pent-up soul. 

“II est tres, tr^s malade; mais il y a de I’espoir,” 
said the maid. In the meantime she had taken Pauline’s 


330 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


portmanteau in one hand, and holding the arm of the 
latter firmly by the other, was resolutely pushing a way 
through the crowd. “J’ai une voiture qui attend,” she 
explained. 

A moment later Pauline was leaning back in a hansom, 
with her eyes closed, and Fifine was holding a small 
bottle of s// anglais to her nostrils, and uttering a thou- 
sand ejaculations to “le bon Dieu” and “Jesus Maria” 
in her behalf. Giddiness and emotion, above all the 
unaccustomed fast, had made the poor child faint. She 
did not return to herself until the cab rolled through 
the avenue gates, and the old, sweet, well-remembered 
perfume of the orange and lemon-trees was wafted to 
where she sate. Somehow, under its familiar moonlight 
aspect, the' place did not seem the same. Her recollec- 
tion of it had been of wider space and taller trees. Even 
the verandah seemed to have shrunk as she ran across 
it through the wide-open front door. But there was no 
time to wonder at this transient impression, for there, 
under the gas chandelier in the brightly illumined hall, 
grand’mbre was holding out her arms to her child. 

Pauline flew into them. Oh, why had she ever left 
them ? She had not cried all her tears awa^ even yet. 
Or was it grand’mere’s cheeks that were wet, as she 
pressed her lips upon them again and again in a pas- 
sionate embrace ? The first greetings were not very 
coherent on either side. Pauline would have rushed to 
Chubby’s bedside at once, but was held back in order 
that she might prepare herself to master her emotion 
upon seeing him. It was one o’clock in the morning. 
Madame Delaunay took her granddaughter’s hand within 
her own, and walked softly with her up the staircase 
into the sick-room, where a dim night-light was burning, 
and a hospital nurse was sitting by the bedside. As 
she entered the door, Pauline could hear the child 
muttering in the delirium of fever. She could dis- 
tinguish her own name and the gardener’s, mingled 
with disconnected phrases about sharks upon the ver- 
andah and the cow in the bathing-house. 

“Chubby darling!” she whispered, kneeling by his 
side and taking one of the fevered hands picking at 
the quilt into her own, while she softly kissed his fore- 
head, “Pauline has come back to her darling. Aren’t 
you glad to see her?” 


331 


AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY. 

There was a faint flash of recognition in the brilliant 
blue eyes — “Pauline — I want Pauline/' said the child, 
and the same refrain continued long after the fleeting 
look of intelligence had vanished. Pauline turned a 
face of despair toward the nurse, who answered it by 
giving her an account in a softly modulated voice, 
attuned by long practice to the sick-room pitch, of the 
beginning and progress of the malady. It was malig- 
nant scarlet fever (an illness of which Pauline had had 
a mild form in her childhood), and the young gentle- 
man had a very bad attack of it without doubt. But 
the doctor did not despair of pulling him through. The 
nurse considered herself that the fever was approaching 
its crisis, after which it would be easier to give an opinion. 
Pauline, who had never known or recked of sickness — 
excepting in the vaguely remembered instance when she 
had had the scarlatina — hung upon the woman’s words 
as though an angel or a prophet had uttered them. Her 
own utter ignorance in this respect — she had never be- 
held a corpse or watched by a sick-bed in her life — made 
it extremely difficult for her to conceive the possibility 
of Chubby’s dying. He was there before her — changed, 
it is true, his cheeks flushed unnaturally, his eyes shin- 
ing like stars; but he was there — and with regard to his 
feverish tossing and moaning, why, she had already 
known him to talk and start in his sleep even when he 
was 'well. She could understand when they said that 
he was very very ill. But that his little body should 
ultimately stiffen into cold rigidity, and have to be 
carried away in a box and hidden out of sight for ever 
— ihat was a notion beyond her present grasp. Death 
must be seen to be believed in. There is deep truth in 
those unpretending lines of the poet — 

“ A simple child 
That lightly draws its breath, 

And feels its life in every limb, 

What can it know of Death ? ” 

For Pauline the King of Terrors was still a vague 
and shadowy phantom, so far removed in time and 
space as to have hardly a “thinkable” existence for 
her. Still there were many days of cruel anxiety to 
be gone through. The doctor came and went; the 
nurse divided her day nnd night waiciies wiih Madame 


332 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Delaunay, Pauline herself, and Fifine. The gravel 
paths all round the houee were covered with bark; an'd 
hour succeeded hour in warm, darkened, grief-laden 
silence. A telegram had been received from George 
requesting immediate telegraphic news of his wife’s 
arrival in Sydney and of Chubby’s- condition, and pro- 
mising a letter by first steamer. The message had 
been despatched as requested, but the promised letter 
had not arrived. There had been no mail indeed 
since Pauline’s departure, and she herself waited to 
hear before writing. She had never received a letter 
from her husband as yet. For all she heard of him 
during this period he might have passed out of her life 
for ever. Madame Delaunay never mentioned his name. 
Fifine called the young wife made^noiselle, and forgot to 
correct herself, and the nurse called her miss. ChU^bby 
was the first thought in every mind. Yet there were 
moments when Pauline, sitting by the little bed in the 
silent, darkened chamber, found her thoughts wandering 
unbidden towards her woman’s life, with its secret 

burden and sinful intentions. A kind of superstition, 
against which no self-originated arguments could prevail, 
prevented her from writing to her friend. Despite all 
her scientific beliefs, she seemed to see a sinister con- 
nection between her own actions in life and Chubby’s 
fate. It was for Chuliby she had married George. It 
was Chubby who had prevented her at the eleventh 

hour from sealing her destiny with another. (For, 
arraigned before her own conscience, she was fain to 
confess that the midnight visit to the yacht would have 
been tantamount to taking the irrevocable step.) And 
now, when the one prayer of her being was that 
Chubby might be restored to her, how could she mingle 
with it the thought of a sentiment that she dared not 
even connect with it in her mind? On the other hand, 
strange to say, absence from George seemed to soften 
the outline of him that her imagination presented to her 

during her lonely night-watches. She thought less of 

the agitated life of Melbourne, and more of the calm — 
too calm — existence of Rubria. Had she ever tried 
seriously to win over poor George to interest himself in 
other matters besides his horses and dogs? He had 
intelligence in plenty! How well he had explained the 
land question, both from the selectors’ and squatters’ 


333 


AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY. 

point of view, that day on board the yacht ! He had a 
very good ear for music, too. A*nd he always said — and 
she was sure he meant it — that for her he would do 
anything. The tears that started to Pauline’s eyes during 
those phases of self-communing were not all of bitter- 
ness. There was pity and tenderness for another as 
well as sorrow for herself. What share Sir Francis 
Segrave, and the hardness of life altogether might have 
had in them, I cannot,^ however, say. 

Chubby’s fever, meanwhile, reached its crisis, and was 
followed by a sinking that caused the doctor to look 
portentously grave. But kindly sleep took the little boy in 
hand, and though he was too weak even to move his 
shrunken hand over the bedclothes, there was recognition 
in his blue eyes when Pauline, with a mother’s yearning in 
her face, bent over to kiss him as he woke. By degrees 
the awful nightmare that weighed over the household was 
lifted. Madame Delaunay, with her two children finder 
her eyes, would turn her face from the bed where Chubby 
was lying to the low chair in which Pauline was seated 
by his side, with a heart too full to speak. Day by day a 
little way was made, until 4he great, never-to-be-forgotten, 
happy hour, when the feeble little form was placed upon 
Pauline’s lap by the open window, while grand’mere and 
Fifine, both on their knees before it, drew each a stocking 
over the little spindles that represented Chubby’s erstwhile, 
solid' calves. Pauline knew she was very happy — though 
a strange feeling of listlessness had come over her. She 
could not eat, even to celebrate the first lunch in Chubby’s 
convalescent room, at a table laden with Beau-Sejour 
fruit and flowers, and her limbs felt as though they were 
weighted with lead. The doctor was the first to warn 
Madame Delaunay that her grandchild — she was still 
“ fnadame’s grandchild ” to the man who had brought her 
into the world — was sickening for a fever. It was a cruel 
stroke in the midst of the rejoicing caused by Chubby’s 
recovery, and unlooked for as it was cruel. Madame 
found that her mind, instead of being fortified by the 
long sorrow and suspense it had gone through, was less 
able than ever to bear a new ordeal. She felt as though 
she were already bruised inwardly, and shrank in terror 
from a fresh blow. But as she had once forced her lips 
into the semblance of a smile, when her heart was bleed- 
ing, in order that her darling might be reassured at the 


334 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


moment of leave-taking, so she now battled against the 
despair that overcame -her, and constrained herself to think 
only of the immediate and practical necessities of the 
case. Pauline was installed in her own maiden-room, a 
bower of comfort and cleanliness, full too of associations 
of a happy and innocent childhood. 

There, with George’s letter by her side, she lay in a 
strange torpor, not realising that she was ill, feeling 
curiously indifferent to the past and the future, only 
longing to sleep., She knew the letter by heart, and 
somehow the words of it would continue ringing, ringing 
in her ears. Sometimes hardly audible, at other times 
almost piercing her brain. There was another letter for 
her lying below, and yet another, in an unknown hand. 
Madame Delaunay dared not give her either. By-and-by, 
perhaps, when she had slept; for certainly the contents 
of this first letter of George’s were enough for her brain 
in its j)resent condition. 

“ My own sweet darling wife,” it began, “ I was never 
so taken aback in my life, as when I got back to the hotel 
about ten o’clock, and found ‘the telegram on the table 
telli ; me you were gone. I would have started straight 
after you, there and then, only I had just -got a message 
myself from the station to say there was a big fire. lake • 
my luck ! the wool-shed was burning, and they didn’t see 
how they were to save the homestead, though every man- 
jack and woman on the place was working like a nigger 
against the flames. I was bound to come straight up 
home, and I’m sure it would go to your heart to see what 
the place looks like now. Luckily the. buildings were all 
put up at old Carp’s expense, and if we build again we’ll 
have something better than the old shanty to live in, you 
bet. But I won’t write to you about this, my darling. 
We’ve got the house safe, and all that’s in it. I’ve got 
to stop on a bit to settle matters up, and see what my 
losses are ; I can’t say anything yet about that. What I 
want to tell you most of all is this — my heart is full of 
you, my darling wife, night and day. Don’t you think I 
don’t know I’m not worthy of you ? I can’t tell what the 
devil came over me down in Melbourne. I never acted 
so before, and I never will again. I lie awake at night 
thinking of it all, and wondering how 1 could be such 
a cursed fool. I don’t want to make excuses for myself 


AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY. 


335 


either, but I will say I wasn’t the only one to blame. 
That fellow Segrave isn’t a good mate for a married man. 
Many’s the- time I’d have come away if he hadn’t got 
round me. And there was more behind the gambling 
racket than I told you. If I’d listened to him, I’d have 
gone to the devil outright. He would have got me to 
knock round and act so that I’d have put a bullet into 
myself before long. Thank God that time is over and 
done with. Now that Tm by myself here I’ve got time to 
think, and I’ve found out that you’re everything in life to 
me, darling. I was never a great fist at letter-writing, as 
you know, and I can’t get one-hundredth part of what I 
want to say at the end of my pen. But the English of it 
is that you’re never one second out of my thoughts. Every 
morning I feel I can’t spend another day without you. I 
see your sweet, dear, angelic face at every turn, and my 
heart aches — aches for you as though it would burst. When 
I get you again, my love, you shall just see what a different 
character I’ve become. I haven’t studied you as I ought. 
I mean to work for you now, so that you shall live where 
you like and do what you like. We’ll try and go to Europe 
for a year or two, and get madame and the liitle chap to 
come along with us. I’ll never touch a card or run a horse 
again, or drink a droj) of Ikjuor if you don’t want me to. 
I don’t want any greater happiness in life than to have you 
give me a little bit of your love. 

“ I was awfully glad to learn by the last telegram that 
Chubby is out of danger. But you take care of yourself, 
my pet. Don’t be tiring yourself too much. I am hurry- 
ing all I can to come and join you. But I guess it will 
be ten days yet before I can get away.” 

The letter continued in a similar strain for another two 
pages, ending by a passionate protestation on the part of 
the writer to the effect that he would never “live an hour” 
if he were parted from his wife. 

This letter had seemed clear enough to Pauline the first 
time she read it, but now, as she cast her languid eyes 
over it, the phrases had lost all their meaning. The words 
had become a mere disconnected jumble of strokes : still 
she did not feel alarmed. Everything in the room, as 
well as the letter, had changed. The beautiful convolvuli 
that wreathed the little window-frame, and her mother’s 
portrait upon the wall (which grand’m^re had refused to 


33<5 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH, 


let her take away to Rubria), and the dressing-table that 
Fifine had newly draped with blue and white chintz — all 
these were blurred and distorted. The only thing that 
was clear was the row of differently coloured balls of light, 
mostly green and red, that travelled slowly across the room 
in a long slant mounting as they went It was fatiguing, 
to be sure, to follow their course ; and the strangest part of 
it was that when Pauline shut her eyes the coloured balls 
continued to travel all the same. Only she was not gqual 
to the effort of wondering how this phenomenon was to 
be accounted for. She heard grand’mere’s voice, and a 
male voice, which she dimly recognised as that of the 
doctor’s, in tones that seemed to sound from a long way 
off. Then she felt her wrist encircled by human fingers 
that pressed upon it gently and firmly. She looked slowly 
up with eyes that wandered in spite of herself. 

“ Don’t tell George I am ill,” she whispered with effort. 

The balls had gone away, and now there were only 
rings and stars moving backwards and forwards in space. 
They intercepted her view of grand’ mbre and the doctor, 
who for their part seemed to grow alternately larger and 
smaller, and to bend and curtsey at her like figures in a 
pantomime. But by-and-by the rings and stars disap- 
peared, as the balls had done before them. Grandmhre 
and the doctor writhed themselves out of sight, and all 
was dark before Pauline’s gaze. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

HUSBAND AND WIFE. 

** Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate.” 

—Pope. 

For just how long a time Pauline lay stretched upon 
her sick-bed she could not well have told. Her impres- 
tion was of a tedious, confused dream, during which she 
was rendered very miserable by all kinds of unlooked- 
for hindrances. She was always trying, she fancied, to 
reach some place or perform some action upon which her 
whole salvation seemed to depend, and always finding her- 
self prevented and frustrated. She had some remarkable 
visits, too, at this time, that worried her prodigiously. One 
was from Mr. Travers, who stood at the foot of her bed and 
grinned. He grinned so persistently that Pauline grew 
frightened ; but by-and-by she perceived that he could not 
help himself, for his head was nothing but a Fijian skull, 
like those she had seen on the Aurora. 

She was so fascinated by this spectacle that she could 
not turn her eyes from it, nor even cry out to grand’mere 
to ask Mr. Travers to go away. Another curious visitor 
was Victory. The colt would actually jump over her 
bed, backwards and forwards, taking impossible leaps each 
time, until she was so tired of looking at him that she 
did not know what to do. Sometimes too it would rain 
oranges upon her bed coverings ; and though that was 
amusing at first, the oranges would fatigue her in the 
end almost as much as Victory had done. Altogether 
it was a wegrisome time, and the more wearisome that 
the sufferer’s brain was quite incapable of grasping the 
fact that it was a time whicii would have its term. 

“Mental worry has had a great deal to do with the 
illness, eh?” the doctor explained to Madame Delaunay, 
when reassuring the poor lady about her grandchild’s 
condition. He had a trick, of ending every phrase with 
an emphatic and interrogative “ Eh ? ” which nobody 

Y 


338 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


ever thought of answering. “ It is the main cause of 
the kind of low fever from which our patient is suffering. 
You must not be alarmed at the symptoms of delirium. 
That is a natural consequence, eh ? 1 will answer for it we 

will pull her through in a few weeks’ time. Curious that 
the boy’s illness should have affected her so powerfully. 
She is very impressionable, very much so indeed, eh ? ” 

Madame Delaunay had her suspicions that there was 
something more than Chubby’s illness to account for 
the “mental worry” alluded to by the doctor, but her 
only reply was, as she looked at him steadfastly — 

“You say me there is no danger, docteur. Then will 
I not alarm without cause Mr. Drafton, the husband of 
my grandchild.” 

The doctor gathered his brows into a frown of recollec- 
tion. “ Her husband, oh — ah — to be sure ! Ton my 
word, I had almost forgotten that there was a husband in 
the case. Well, now you mention it, I think it would 
be your duty to let him know exactly how his wife is. 
'I'here’s no danger noicf. I’ll stake my professional repu- 
tation upon that. But he would naturally be anxious; 
and all things considered, I think I should lose no time 
in writing to him, eh ? ” 

“ effett You think so?” said his questioner, with 
a half smile that “gave the doctor to reflect,” as madame 
herself would have said. She' It never write,” he said to 
himself, as he rode away past the fragrant orange trees. 
“ 'I'alk of mothers-in-law — eh I 'I'here’s a grandmother-in- 
law who’ll never forgive the man who robbed her of her 
child’s heart. However, Pve done my duty, eh ? The 
responsibility rests entirely with her.” 

'i'he doctor’s surmise was correct. George was kept 
almost in Complete ignorance of his wife’s condition. To 
account for her not writing, Madame Delaunay brought 
herself to the point of inditing a letter to her grandson-in- 
law with her own hands, in which she mentioned casually 
that Pauline was suffering from a slight cold, and was under 
positive orders to keep her bed for a day or two. She 
even forced herself to write a message of affectionate 
import -from her grandchild to the young man, though 
the concocting or the samd cost her a terrible effort. But 
“Monsieur Shorge” must be kept from her child’s sick- 
bed at all costs. To have li-im bending over it with a 
husband s rights was a vision too unendurable to contem- 


HUSBAND AND WIFE. 


339 


plate. Madame Delaunay had never seen Pauline and 
George as man and wife. She almost prayed heaven that 
that experience might be spared her. The recollection of 
them as an engaged couple, and of all she had gone through 
at the time of their fian^'ailies, was already strong enough 
and cruel enough without that. 

As for Pauline herself, she was incapable of expressing 
or even framing a wish, save that the Fijian skulls, the colts, 
and the oranges would leave her at peace. Only afier 
many days of fevered dreams she woke one mornings to 
the fact that she was lying in her own white-curtained bed 
in her own dear room at Beau-Sejour. The radiant light 
was raining down through the bars of the half-closed 
Venetian blinds, and she herself seemed to be steeped in 
a kind of moist, blissful, drowsy well-being. 

Oh, the blessing of feeling the things about her to be 
real and stable ! No more monstrous shapes and dis- 
torted fancies ! Her mother’s SAveet face in its frame on 
the opposite wall, that she had always connected with the 
portrait of Ginevra — “ ’Tis of a lady in her earliest youth ” — 
looking at her with the old fixed smile. The shadows of 
the creepers travelling over the white curtains, and making 
her think of the warm air without, dancing across the 
sparkling waters of the bay. It is too great an effort to 
realise the fact that she has been so ill. What is past and 
wh(it is to come do not seem to concern her. She is only 
conscious that it is sweet to live — sweet to lie there, in a 
stupor of contentment, with her eyes half-closed, and the 
sounds of insects humming and birds twdttering blending 
themselves with the murmur of distant voices into a sym- 
phony that falls like music upon her awakening senses. 

By-and-by grand’mere is leaning over her with worlds 
of wistful love and longing in her face. Pauline just opens 
her drowsy eyes to smile at her, and relapses again into the 
happy torpor which has succeeded to the dreary dreams 
that have tormented her for so long. 

A stillness of death prevails in the house. Fifine’s tongue 
is silenced by fear, and Chubby takes a lesson from Berger 
and Bergerette in the art of not making a noise. 

What will not careful nursing and beef- tea k la Delaunay 
accomplish? There came a day very shortly afterwards 
when Pauline could sit at the open window of her room 
and inhale the mingled perftimes of the orange-trees and the 
sea with a rapture only known to youthful convalescence. 


340 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Chubby, who seemed to have become amazingly taller 
since his illness, had been giving her a long and circum- 
stantial description of the fowl-house he was helping the 
gardener to paint, with especial insistance upon the portion 
“he had done all his own self,” and was very indignant 
when the advent of the doctor led to the cutting short of 
this interesting narrative, and, worst indignity of all, to his 
being politely ejected from Pauline’s room. 

After the doctor was gone Chubby rushed back to his 
old post by the invalid’s side and took up the thread of 
the fowl-house tale from the precise point at which it had 
been interrupted. But raising his eyes to his listener’s 
face, the child beheld therein something that made him 
stop suddenly short, and exclaim with a voice of sur- 
prised indignation — 

“ I do just believe you’re not listening one bit.” Then 
after another curious inspection, “ And you’re crying — oh 
yes, you are. Oh, please^ Pauline, what is it.^* Was it 
the doctor ? ” 

“ Yes — no, dear ! ” Pauline made reply, reaching out 
her arm towards the child. “ I’m not crying for sorrow, 
Chubby dear ! People cry sometimes because they’re 
too glad, you know.” 

At this rejoinder Chubby’s honest eyes assumed a 
decidedly incredulous expression. “/ don’t cry when 
I’rn glad. I laugh. I say ‘Hip — hip — hooray.’” 

“Well, you may say ‘Hip, hip, hooray’ for me,” said 
Pauline, laughing through her tears ; “ only get me my 
little writing-case, and the small table from over there, 
and the ink, and don’t talk to me till I’ve finished, there’s 
a good boy. I’ve got to write a very important letter.” 

Chubby’s jealousy of the important letter gave way to 
the pleasure of being useful. He arranged the writing- 
case, the ink, and the blotting-paper with mathematical 
exactitude; and even declared his willingness to write the 
letter itself — “ He was in round-hand now,” he explained 
— “ if Pauline would tell him what to put in it.” This 
amiable offer being refused, he betook himself with a 
somewhat injured air to the fowl-house again, and Pauline, 
left alone with her thoughts, took up her pen after a 
moment of deep reflection and wrote thus : — 

“ These few lines are to bid you farewell for ever. You 
will say perhaps that my illness has weakened my brain. 


HUSBAND AND WIFE. 341 

but I cannot help believing" that what people call Provi- 
dence has interposed itself in my behalf to save me from 
committing an action which could only have ended in 
crime and misery unspeakable. Some day not very far 
in the future you will understand what I mean. I cannot 
say more, and I am too weak to write much. This is my 
final and irrevocable good-bye.” 

Whether from agitation, or because she was so enfeebled 
by the effects of her illness, Pauline’s fingers trembled as 
she wrote. After folding her note into an envelope, which 
she addressed to Sir Francis Segrave, Melbourne Club, 
Melbourne, in a very shaky superscription, she rang the 
little bell that grand’mhre had left within her reach, and 
confided the missive to Finne, with an urgent entreaty 
that it should be stamped and dropped a rinstant vihiie 
into the pillar-box just outside the garden gate. She 
seemed only to breathe freely after the letter was gone. 
It was the first and la.st time she would have written to 
the man she called “her friend.” Her friend ! And into 
what an abyss of horror he would have led her ! Sup- 
posing the telegram concerning Chubby’s illness had not 
reached her? Supposing that by some ghastly, horrible 
accident she had not looked at it, or that, in her hurry to 
carry out her reckless intention of visiting the yacht, she 
ha(l already left the hotel before it came? Supposing she 
had had the time to yield in deed to the temptation which 
beset her in thought ? What would have become of her 
afterwards ? What would she have felt when she came to 
discover the awful and irremediable consequences of her 
madness? Where would she have hidden her crushing 
and overwhelming shame ? There was the ring, certainly ! 
An easy solution, perhaps, where she alone was concerned. 
But the mysterious, wonderful, sacred life dependent on 
her own — the life for which George could call her to 
account, thd life that would confer on her the holy boon 
of motherhood — by what right would she have flung that 
away? And what a withering blight she would have cast 
upon it and upon herself! All her pride and rejoicing 
would have been turned into tenfold bitterness and humilia- 
tion. Her first-born I The words thrilled her with a 
strange ecstasy. Yet how nearly she had sacrificed that 
pure happiness to the satisfaction of her own unholy 
impulses. 


342 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


Yet after yielding to the first rush of remorseful feeling 
Pauline tried, according to her ancient wont, to judge her 
position reasonably and dispassionately. 

‘•After all/’ she said to herself, “why should I reason 
like those ancient Israelites, who thought that an uncon- 
scious sin was just as awful, and deserved to be punished 
just as severely, as an intentional wrong. I would iiave 
worked three ruins — my husband’s, my child’s, and my 
own, where I had thought to work only one, or perhaps 
none at all, but I would have done so in utter ignor- 
ance. Why should I look upon myself with such horror ? 
Why should I feel such a sudden loathing of the man who 
would have taken me from George? After all, much of 
our feeling concerning right and wrong is instinctive, and 
cannot be reasoned about. The only thing I see clearly 
is that it is quite impossible to fight for one’s own indi- 
vidual happiness in this world. One might as well try to 
appropriate one of the colours of the rainbow for one’s 
exclusive use. We are so tangled up with our belongings 
that we can’t detach ourselves. I dare not think now of 
what would have happened if I had not opened grand’- 
mbre’s telegram. Where I might have been, and what I 

would have felt when I discovered — — But there is 

grand’mere, and another step on the stairs — it is George, 
and my heart is beating as though it would break.” 

“ My old woman ! ” cried George, bursting into the 

room. Through the brown and sunburn that the 

scorching plains of Rubria and the warm Pacific winds 
had spread over his cheeks, Pauline could detect the 
sudden pallor of a strong and deep emotion. She was 
almost as white ms her husband at the moment when he 
clasped her to his heart. Then down upon his knees 
by her side, with his arms about her, George poured 
forth the whole of his heart, his remorse, his love, his 
solemn God-help-him resolve never again to gamble, or 
put him-self into the way of temptation of any kind. 
Madame Delaunay, walking restlessly about, with a 
stern set face, and considering her grandchild rather in 
the light of Monsieur Shorge’s victim than in that of his 
wife, grew almost desperate at the undue length of the 
interview between the re-united couple. That Pauline 
should have grown fond of her husband was an hypothesis 
madame could not admit, not only because she herself 
saw nothing in George to excite uite grande passion, but 


HUSBAND AND WIFE. 


343 

because Pauline’s letters had always savoured rather of 
resignation than of bridal happiness and triumph. 

Yet the morning was wearing on. The little tray, 
arranged by madame’s own hands, with the bowl of puree 
aux croutons that only she could prepare to Pauline’s liking, 
and the ceufs d, la ?ieige covered with golden froth, was 
ready to be carried upstairs. The poor child must be faint 
for want of nourishment, and no doubt imbecile de 
marV^ was tiring her out with his bavardage. 

At last madame’s patience gave way. Accompanied by 
Fifine and the tray, she knocked at the door, with a tap 
that said plainly she could take no denial. George came 
to open it. His face was flushed, and his eyes were, 
shining with exultant joy. Pauline’s grandmother glanced 
anxiously at the couch by the window. 

There were traces of tears upon the invalid’s cheeks, but 
she looked strangely happy. 

“ Does madame know ? ” whispered George to hi.s wife. 
Pauline shook her head. “ Do tell her,” he urged, “ I 
know she’s always had a down on me, but she can’t grudge 
me being so happy ; it’s against nature.” 

Whether madame grudged the young husband’s happi- 
ness or not, she took advantage of the great tidings to 
exact an immediate promise that the event should come 
off at Beau-Sejour. 

“Of course Pd rather our child were a Victorian,” said 
George in confidence to his wife upon a later occasion. 
“ I’m a Victorian myself, and I don’t think the New South 
Walers are a patch upon us — but,” he added rather in- 
consequently, after a moment’s reflection, “ that’s as much 
as to say I’d rather it were like me than you, and you 
know it’s just the very contrary Vd bargain for.” 

“ If it could only be like Chubby,” said Pauline pensively. 

She was getting stronger every day, and, much to her 
own astonishment, found her thoughts occasionally re- 
curring with a sense of something like longing to the 
lonely homestead of Rubria. Here in her early home 
she could see where George jarred upon grand’mere, and 
where grand’mbre was manifestly unjust to George, in 
opinion if not in expression. Even Chubby seemed to 
maintain an attitude of covert hostility towards him until 
the day when George took the lattice-work of the fowl- 
house in hand, and left the convict-gardener and Chubby 
himself such miles behind him, that the little boy began 


344 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


to entertain a resi)ect for his nephew-in-law which Pauline 
did her utmost to foster. Strange to say, when the time 
came for returning to Rubria, the parting from grand’mere 
and Chubby was not nearly such a wrench as Pauline had 
anticipated. 


CONCLUSION. 

Just five years after the events narrated in the preceding 
chapter, a lady was seated upon a chair on the Champs 
Elysees, amid the brilliant surroundings of a fine spring 
day in Paris. A little boy, of some four years of age, 
with a nose of the order known as snub and a pair of 
remarkably wide-awake blue eyes, was running backwards 
and forwards between the lady’s chair and a circus of 
revolving wooden horses, that just now was flying round 
to the tune of “Oh, Paris, gai sejour!” with an accom- 
paniment of booming drums and glittering spangles 
calculated to deafen and dazzle all beholders at one and 
the same time. 

been on to a wooden pony just like old Victory !” 
shouted the child, as he ran up, in tones of such breathless 
excitement that the passers-by looked round and smiled. 
The lady blushed, for the glances directed at the little 
boy in the first instance were invariably arrested upon 
herself. This was hardly to be wondered at, seeing that 
she was remarkably pretty, and that her dress of black 
and lilac silk {complimentary mourning, if you please, for 
an uncle of her husband’s who had left them money at 
a time when it was very welcome) came straight from a 
fashionable Paris dressmaker’s, much patronised by a rich 
American and Australian clieiitlk. 

d'o recover her composure under the consciousness 
that more than one young and old gommeux was looking 
at her with keen approval through his binocle, the lady 
rose from her chair, took the little boy’s hand in her own, 
and allowed herself to be dragged off to behold the wooden 
Victory. As she did so, a gentleman with a clean-shaven 
face and a nervous mouth, who had been watching her, 
unknown to herself, with great interest and curiosity for 
the space of full two minutes and a half, rose deliberately 
from his seat upon a wooden bench and followed her. 


CONCLUSION. 


345 


“ I’m afraid you’ve forgotten me, Mrs. Drafton,” he said, 
as he approached the lady, and raising his hat from his 
head, replaced it immediately, whereby he proved beyond 
doubt that he was no Frenchman. “ It’s some years now 
since 1 had the pleasure of meeting you.” 

“ I — I — haven’t forgotten,” replied Pauline, whom our 
readers will naturally have recognised at once in the lady. 
“You are Mr. Travers — are you not?” 

From rose-red she had become very pale, and her dark 
eyes looked unduly scaled. If the very correct and well- 
bred young man who had just addressed her in the broad 
light of day, in the midst of a crowd of fashionable loungers, 
had come in the same questionable shape as Hamlet’s 
father himself, she could hardly have looked more startled. 

Mr. Travers appeared to take no note of her confusion. 

“ How is Mr. Drafton ? Is this your little boy ? I was 
pretty sure of it. I’ve been watching him. He’s got an eye 
for a horse already, though it’s only a wooden one. I saw 
him spot that chestnut charger — as you say in the colonies 
— and he wouldn’t have any other, not at any price.” 

“This is my little girl too,” said Pauline, with all a 
young mother’s pride in her voice, as she turned towards 
an English nurse who approached at this moment with a 
child in her arms. “ Hold out your hand, Rosie — so ! ” 

This injunction was clearly a feint to induce the child 
in question to lift a pair of magnificent dark eyes towards 
the attentive face of the stranger. 

“ .\nd Mr. Drafton ? ” said young Travers, after he had 
declared that the little girl had eyes like Esther’s, in Edwin 
Long’s celebrated picture of that name. 

“ My husband?” answered Pauline. “He’svery well, thank 
you. He’s coming to join us by-and-by. We were to meet 
opposite the corner of the Rue Marboeuf at half past four.” 

'Phere was a pause. Pauline longed to ask for news 
of the Aurora. . From the time of her returning to Rubria 
with her husband, after the memorable stay at Beau- 
Sejour, she had heard no more of the friend from whose 
arms she had escaped as by a miracle. Sometimes, 
sitting in front of those legendary logs upon the Rubria 
hearth, with George reading the sporting columns of the 
Australasian just opposite to her, and their first-born 
playing on the wallaby rug at her feet, Pauline would 
shuddeii inwardly at the secret memory of the awful lisk 
she had run — a memory that would ever be locked within 


346 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


her own breast — a memory of which the existence even 
could only be guessed at by one other man in ihe world, 
and that man not her husband. Yet there had been 
other times — curiously enough, it was always at sunset, 
and when she was alone upon the verandah — when the 
vision of the “might have been ’’would seem to descend 
upon her from the golden west, and vague imaginings of 
an utterly unrealisable bliss, in which mutual admiration 
and love and sympathy were all extravagantly blended 
in dual lives, and fancy and intellect found keen incite- 
ment and full play against a shining background, held her 
captive. These dreams had been discarded as best they 
might, and had disappeared of their own accord when 
Pauline was nursing her little Rosie. But the faint recol- 
lection of them sufficed to paralyse her power of speech 
now that she was in presence of Sir Francis Segrave’s com- 
])anion. Though the longing to know was oppressing her 
heart, she could only find utterance for indifferent topics. 
Suddenly the young man himself broke the spell. 

“ I’m with the skipper again — did I tell you ? — it’s such 
a lark. He’s quite the Ancient Mariner now. You’d never 
know him. His hair is white, though not with years. At 
least he says not. ’Pon my word, I never saw a fellow go 
grey all of a sudden as he did. You wouldn’t credit it.” 

“ Are you on the yacht still ? ” asked Pauline, aware 
as she spoke of a sudden contraction in her throat that 
rendered her words almost inaudible. 

“ The yacht ! ” echoed her companion. Truth to tell, it 
was all he had been able to gather of Mrs. Drafton’s rejoinder. 
“The yacht is at Marseilles. 1 dragged the skipper up to 
Paris, because I wanted to see Zes Cent Eierges, you know. 
^Ve’re at Meurice’s. Where are you staying?” 

“At the Louvre — but — but not for very long — I don’t 
know for how long exactly.” 

The answer was so painfully constrained that a sudden 
suspicion that George Drafton might have “gone broke” 
on the Cup, and fled to Europe with his wife, flashed for 
an instant across Mr. Travers’ mind. It was discarded, 
however, a moment later by her adding more composedly, 
“ We haven’t quite made up our minds whether we shall 
spend the spring here or in London.” 

There was another pause. Mr. 'Fravers was evidently 
waiting for a friendly injunction to call at the Louatc with 
his companion as soon as possible, but Pauline’s gaze, fixed 


CONCLUSION. 


347 


abstractedly upon the whirling, twirling brilliance of the 
revolving circus, offered no encouragement. 

“We’ve been in South America,” he volunteered; “but 
it wasn’t very lively. The skipper’s not half the company 
he used to be.” 

“No?” said Pauline, feeling that some kind of answer 
was expected of her. 

“No : he’s turned a regular misanthrope. What’s worse 
still, he’s almost a woman-hater. You wouldn’t have 
thought that of him, would you ? ” 

“ 1 don’t know — no, I don't think so.” 

Then holding out her hand by a sudden impulse, she 
bade the astonished Mr. Travers good-bye, murmuring an 
incoherent phrase in which the words, “'Yery sorry,” and 
“appointment she could not miss,” seemed to offer an 
excuse for so abrupt a dismissal of him. Before he could 
recover from his surprise, he saw her move away in the 
direction of the Rue Marboeuf with her little boy running 
by her side, the nurse with the Esther-eyed baby following 
in her wake. 

“A pretty plain hint f/ial, that she prefers your room 
to your company, my boy,” said the discomfited young 
man to himself, staring after her retreating figure. Until 
to-day he had flattered himself that Mrs. Drafton’s recol- 
lection of him liad not been altogether a disagreeable 
one. For his own part, he had never forgotten the 
radiant apparition that had visited the Aurora, and his 
heart had beaten faster than was its wont when he had 
beheld it again so unexpectedly a few minutes back. 

Pauline meanwhile walked hurriedly along, unheeding 
of the plaints of little George, who pleaded hard for 
“Just one more go round on Victory.” 

Arrived at the Place de la Concorde, she met her 
husband on his way to join her at the appointed meet- 
ing place. Prosperity sate well upon George. He had 
aged, but not fo his disadvantage. He carried himself with 
more dignity than of yore, as one conscious of his respon- 
sibilities and proud of the possession of them. 

“Well, old woman !”— he had seen his wife before she 
saw hint, and had found time to admire her appearance 
in the complimentary mourning with the old, ever-fresh 
admiration — “you weren’t going to give me the slip, I 
hope? Rosie can stop out a bit longer, can’t she?” 

Little George was George’s pride — a chip of the old 


348 


IN HER EARLIEST YOUTH. 


block, as any one could see — but his little girl seemed 
to have wound herself round his very heart-strings. 

“No! I'm going to take the children back, George. 

I want to start for England to-night.” 

“To-night! oh, that be bothered I We’re going to stay 
a night longer yet.” 

“ George ! I don’t often want anything unreasonable, 
do I ? I mean it seriously this time. There’s just time 
to pack up and start. We’ll come to Paris again later. 
If you won’t come, I’ll start first with the children. 
Indeed, I have a good reason.” 

She was urging her suit with breathless vehemence as 
she walked rapidly by her husband’s side. The brilliant 
spring sun was streaming down through the delicate 
branches of the elms and chestnuts as they crossed the 
garden of the Tuileries on their way to the hotel. The 
Rue de Rivoli was lined with open carriages on their 
way to the Bois. Every one seemed to have hurried out 
to greet the radiant season. 

But to Pauline’s imagination a spectre, gigantic as the 
spectre of the Brocken, interposed itself, between her 
vision and the brilliant landscape spread out in front of 
her. Was she so afraid then of her friend ? Or was she 
yet more afraid — great heavens! — of herselfl 

Ce que femme vent — we all know the rest. George 
experienced the truth of the proverb a few hours later, 
as he was speeding along by the night train to Calais 
with wife, children, bag, and baggage. 

The last I heard of Mr. and Mrs. Drafton was their quest 
of a furnished house in the neighbourhood of Kensington 
upon a two years’ lease. “ It’s a jolly good size,” was 
George’s comment upon the mansion finally selected to 
the agent thereof, “ but we’re expecting an old lady and 
a little chap from Sydney to put up with us the last year 
we’re here, and they’ll want room to turn round in.” 

“ And then your children, a growing family, you know, 
you have two already,’’ suggested the agent blandly. 

“Yes, we’ve got two,” said George meditatively; “and 
as for the family, it’s the same as with everything else — 
you never can tell till the numbers are up.” 











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